


Commas and Ampersands

by obliviongrace



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2015!phan, Established Relationship, M/M, Phandom Big Bang 2018, it also contains many discussions about death and existential dread in typical Dan fashion, so make sure to take care of yourselves if that is hard for you!, while no deaths take place during this story it begins right after a death has happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-19 02:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 45,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obliviongrace/pseuds/obliviongrace
Summary: Several lessons in grammar and linguistics from Phil. When Dan’s grandma dies, Dan and Phil must put their work on hold to travel to his family’s house, causing them to ponder on their choices.





	1. Punctuation

**Author's Note:**

> This story is once again about many things I'd thought I would never write a fic about. Case in point: I previously had never read TABINOF. I have now checked it out from my local library approximately 15 times, along with many books about linguistics. The things I will do to bring my own fictional wonderings about dip and pip to life. 
> 
> While no deaths take place during this story, it begins right after a death has happened. There are also many discussions about death and existential dread, in typical Dan fashion. However, this is a story about love and chosen family and what it means to be true to yourself. In the words of my artist, this is a story with dark themes, but it’s not a dark story. And I hope that it speaks to you in some way.
> 
> Speaking of: thank you to my artist, [xhillester](https://xhillester.tumblr.com/), for their lovely and heartwarming art. Thank you as well to my wonderful beta, [iliveinmyownau](https://iliveinmyownau.tumblr.com/), for catching my many ironic grammar mistakes.
> 
> ~feel free to come say hi to me on tumblr, I am [oblivionsgrace](https://oblivionsgrace.tumblr.com/) :)~

When Dan’s cellphone rang, both he and Phil knew who it was and what it was about. They were sitting on the couch, backs properly slouched into the cushion, with Phil’s arm around Dan’s shoulders. He gently poked Dan’s shoulder with his forefinger and said, “You should probably answer that.”

Dan sighed and dropped his head into Phil’s shoulder. “I don’t want to hear my dad cry.”

This made Phil cock his eyebrows. “You think he’s going to cry?”

“No,” Dan muttered, his voice still muffled by Phil’s shoulder. “At least, not when talking to me. But that just makes it worse – knowing that he wants to cry and having to listen to him repress it.”

At this point, Phil was worried that Dan was going to miss the call.  So he reached for the phone on the coffee table with his available hand, grabbed it, accepted the call, and pressed it to Dan’s available ear.

Dan didn’t speak, but Phil could hear the mutters of his mum talking to him through the phone. Eventually Dan lifted his head up and grabbed the phone with his own hand, his fingers lacing in and out of Phil’s as they transferred the weight.

“I’m sorry, mum,” Dan said eventually. “At least it wasn’t painful for her though, in the end.”

Dan hadn’t been crying much, but Phil could hear the tears behind his voice. It was ironic, his comment about his dad, because ever since they’d gotten word that his grandma was probably not going to make it Phil had been on edge about how much Dan _hadn’t_ been crying. He knew that everyone processed everything in their own way, so he didn’t want to point it out, but Dan was normally a crier. A week before getting the news he’d sobbed at _Meet the Robinsons_.

“How’s dad doing?” Dan asked. There wasn’t much of a pause before he said, “Of course. Well, tell him hi from me.” At that point, Dan was sitting up fully and had scooted a bit away from Phil on the couch so that he could clutch the phone to his ear. He turned his head to meet Phil’s eyes, and gave him a small smile. “I love you too, mum. Bye.”

Dan hung up, tossed his phone precariously into the couch, and slumped backwards. “Ugh,” he said, closing his eyes. “I feel hungover. I have an emotional hangover.”

“So she’s dead?” Phil asked, shocking himself as he said it. The word sounded terrible and harsh, and his teeth clashed together forcefully to make the final ‘d’ sound, but he too was a bit emotionally drained in that moment. It was 3 A.M., and they’d stayed up the last couple hours, sitting next to each other in silence, waiting for Dan’s mum to call.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “My mum says she passed about an hour ago. They were woken up by the call.”

Phil chuckled and reached over to run his fingers through Dan’s hair. “They could sleep, unlike you.”

Dan didn’t smile, but his eyes crinkled as if there was one on the inside of his face.

“Let’s be honest, if I hadn’t been sitting here I would have been in my room scrolling through Tumblr. At least this way I was with you.” He nudged Phil’s side with his elbow, and Phil kissed his forehead.

“Hey, that’s too sappy,” Phil joked, his voice still muddled by Dan’s forehead.

Dan wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist and ducked his head into his chest.

“I can’t help it. I’m feeling a little clingy at the moment.”

Phil figured that made sense. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel right now if his grandma had just died.

\- - -

Dan’s grandma had had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Dan had only explained to Phil what that was recently, once she’d gotten really sick. It is a lung disease that causes problems with breathing and swallowing. But most terribly, it constantly gets worse and means that any other illness that causes breathing problems could be fatal.

(“My grandma’s got a cold,” Dan had said to him one night while they were lying in bed together.

Phil had been reading the new Stephen King novel, and so he just muttered, “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Dan sighed. “She’s probably going to die soon.”

That caught Phil’s attention. He threw the book down by his side and turned his head towards Dan. “What?”

Dan was hugging a pillow to his chest and sighed again. “You heard me.”

“How could she die from a cold?” Phil asked, and then Dan explained it all to him. It was horrible, Phil had thought, but more so horrible that he hadn’t known this before.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me earlier,” he said.

Dan gave him a small smile. “Why would I tell you? It would just freak you out.”

“What do you mean?”

Dan narrowed his eyes at him, his smile now a little sad.

“Phil. You panic about these things. Endings. Or the risk of endings. When your dad got tendinitis last year from gardening too much, you wouldn’t stop mentioning it for months. If I told you about this sooner,  you would have wanted to check-in and be there all the time, and you would spend so much time worrying. Which is incredibly sweet, but you’ve got enough on your plate with your own family. You don’t need to worry about mine.”

Phil stared at the ceiling, not knowing how to respond to that. Dan saying it made him feel strange. There was a voice in the back of his head saying, _shouldn’t Dan’s family be my family?_ He’d always felt like Dan considered Phil’s to be part of his own. But Dan wasn’t as close to his family as Phil was to his, so perhaps the extension didn’t take place the same way. Still, Phil often found himself thinking that he knew everything about Dan, everything about his life, everything about his personhood. To find gaps was alarming to him in a way he didn’t know how to articulate.

“Plus, I barely see her as it is,” Dan continued.

That made Phil turn to look at him again. “What? This isn’t your mum’s mum?”

“No, my dad’s. Nana. I don’t want to say I’m glad it’s not my mum’s, but I don’t even know how I’d react if she was sick.”

“Makes sense. I mean, she’s been like a mum to you.”

“Exactly. But nana has always been fairly nice to me as well. I mean, for how little we saw each other. I don’t know. It’s weird. Suddenly, knowing she might be gone soon, I wish I saw her more.”

He felt an instinct inside of him kick into gear: to hug Dan, to comfort him, to worry over whether his grandma was currently breathing well at this exact moment. Only now he felt self-conscious about it, because that was just what Dan had said he’d do.

He reached out and placed his hand over Dan’s. “I’m sorry.”

Dan smiled and cuddled into his side, bringing their joined hands up to lie on Phil’s chest. “I know. Me too.” He leaned up to kiss Phil on the lips, and then laid his head back down with a sigh. “I’m sad.”

“Will some cuddling help?” Phil asked, and he watched as Dan’s face broke into a grin.

“Yes, always. And maybe more, if I’m lucky?”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” Phil said with a wink, and Dan laughed. For a moment, it seemed as if he wasn’t sad, even though Phil knew he still was – as if his grandma wasn’t lying on a bed somewhere, struggling to breathe. Phil didn’t know how to think about those two moments, Dan’s happy-sadness and his grandma’s illness at once. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that, right now, all that was really wrong with her was that she had a cold. And yet, she would probably be gone soon.

Phil hated that fact, that it could all end with just a cold.)

\- - -

It was a week later that Dan got the call from his mum saying that his grandma had passed. Later that night (or morning) Dan cried a little, then he and Phil watched _Broadchurch_ until the sun rose.

“How can you watch to watch this right now?” Phil asked as they watched David Tennant close his eyes in pain at the sight of another dead body. “It’s so serious.”

“I don’t know,” Dan muttered, his voice a bit slurred from exhaustion, “I guess it’s a distraction.”

“It’s intense.”

“You don’t have to watch it,” Dan said.

Phil glanced at him, and then back at the screen. “I guess you’re right. I’m probably going to try to get some sleep.” He gently touched Dan’s hand. “Are you interested in joining?”

Dan shook his head without looking away from the screen. “No. After this episode I’m probably going to start doing some more work on the book.”

That was the problem with the timing of the death – they were in the middle of doing a boot camp of book work. They had a deadline soon – they needed to turn in their first full draft of the manuscript – and Dan especially wanted to make sure everything was perfect. But over the last week they hadn’t done much, except find more old cute photos of them for the sections on their childhoods, because that was easy.

“Okay,” Phil said softly. “Get me up if you need help?”

Dan rolled his eyes and then gave Phil a little glare.

“I’m _fine_ , Phil. Please don’t obsess over how I’m doing.”

“I’m not obsessing,” Phil insisted, feeling rather defensive, yet he also found himself reaching his hand out towards Dan’s again to see if Dan would take it. He didn’t.

“You _are_ ,” Dan retorted. “Or, if you’re not yet, you will.”

Phil groaned and slumped back down onto the couch. “Then what am I supposed to do, Dan? What’s the right thing for me to do here?”

Dan reached out for the remote and paused the episode “I just...,” he said at the same time he let out a huge rush of air. “I don’t want this to turn into too big of a deal. I don’t want this to distract you – _us_ – from the book. So how about this.” Dan now turned on the couch so that he was directly facing Phil, and he leaned forward to place his hands on both of Phil’s knees. “If I am freaking out, or having trouble dealing with my nana’s death, I will come to you. Okay? You know I am capable of asking for help.” Dan stopping to grin, and Phil couldn’t help grinning back, because _yes_ , Dan was more than capable of coming to him for help. “So if I don’t come that means everything is fine, and you shouldn’t be asking me if I’m okay every time you see me, because holy shit would that drive me insane.”

Phil laughed, half because he realized Dan was right and half to hide his embarrassment. He opened his mouth to say something else, but then closed it, realizing that everything he wanted to say at that moment had to do with death in some way, and maybe everything that fell under the umbrella of that word was off-topic.

“I’m not going to immediately fall into a pit of existential dread,” Dan said slowly, staring at Phil as if he’d been reading his mind. He grinned then. “Mostly because I’m in one most of the time anyway.” Phil didn’t respond, as he was thinking about each and every word he might say carefully, and Dan shook his knees. “Okay?” he drawled.

“Okay.”

“Great,” Dan said, leaning back and grabbing the remote again. Then he jumped forward again quickly to kiss Phil on the forehead. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too,” Phil said, and for a moment he thought about asking for a hug. But by then Dan had properly re-positioned himself in his sofa crease, and it seemed like too much effort. So Phil left and walked down the hallway towards his bedroom.

As he walked, his whole body ached. He was tired and delirious and pumped full of emotions, both Dan’s and his own. He was thinking about everything Dan had said, but mostly he was thinking about how he hated the fact that Dan was right – he did tend to get obsessed with the struggles of others. He took them on and lifted the weight onto his shoulders without giving a damn about his own posture.

(“You can’t get hung up on all of my emotions,” Dan had said to him once. “I’ve got so many of them.”

It was while Dan was still at university. He had shown up in Phil’s flat with a basket full of dirty laundry and eyes full of tears. Phil pulled him into a huge hug, and they spent the next few hours cuddling together on his lumpy couch.

“I want to support you.”

“And don’t get me wrong, I want your support,” Dan replied through some sniffles, “Obviously I’m clingy as fuck right now. I also don’t want it to become too much for you. Because you’re so empathetic, Phil. And if you take in all of the emotions I put out, I worry you’ll get lost in them.”

Phil didn’t know what to say in response to that. He found that metaphor sort of haunting, because Phil already got lost a lot as it was. It filled his mind with images – Phil, lost in an expansive rainforest, the bright green foliage sticking into his face; Phil, stuck in a corn maze, every new turn bringing him back to where he was before; Phil, swallowed in the sea, the large waves pushing him down every time he came up for air.

“I don’t know,” Dan said, interrupting Phil’s catastrophizing, “it’s a hard balance.”

“It sounds like you’re overthinking it,” Phil said gently.

Dan looked up at Phil – he was lying on his lap, the back of his head resting on Phil’s left leg – and his eyes twinkled with tears and, maybe, a little love.

“You’re one to talk.” Dan reached up and ruffled Phil’s fringe with his hand. “Phil Lester, the secret overthinker.”)

Phil sat on his bed, now exhausted and a little bit sad, and rubbed his head. God, he wanted a cuddle. Earlier, it was Dan that felt clingy, and now it was him. He felt ridiculous that he felt this way, when it hadn’t even been his grandma that just died. He just really wanted to know how Dan was feeling, and comfort him. Or he wanted to have a normal conversation with Dan. But he felt a developing pool of dread that a normal conversation was going to be hard to have for a while. Because if he couldn’t talk about how Dan was feeling, and couldn’t talk about how he was feeling, what was he supposed to say?

\- - -

Phil woke up at around 5 P.M., and groggily wandered out of his room to find Dan sitting at the dining table with about thirty different sheets of paper spread out in front of him. Even from far away, Phil could pick out what section several of them were from. He’d looked at every single one of those pages so many times already that they were probably all tattooed on the inside of his eyeballs.

“Morning,” he said, wondering if humor was the right way to go.

Dan glanced up at him. He looked like shit, his eyes all bloodshot and his hair curly and sticking up in a dozen different directions. But his face looked calm. “Morning, beautiful.”

Phil laughed. “Is that supposed to be a dig at _my_ appearance? Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

That made Dan’s face fall. “No. I’ve sort of been obsessing over these pages non-stop since you fell asleep.”

“Oh.” Phil sat down across from Dan at the table.

“I also talked to my mum again.”

“Oh?” Phil asked.

Dan took in a deep breath, and for a moment Phil panicked that maybe someone else had died. Dan’s grandpa? One of his cousins? He’d never met any of Dan’s cousins, but he had to have some.

“I want to travel home for the funeral,” Dan eventually blurted, and that surprised Phil, because he said it as if it was big news.

“Okay. When is it?”

“In three weeks,” Dan said. He was staring at the page that his hand was placed on, one about Dan’s high school experience. “But I want to travel home now.”

“Oh!” Phil wasn’t able to stop the surprised tone that his voice took on. “Why? I mean – sorry, that sounded terrible. I’m just, I must admit, surprised that you want to.”

Dan smiled a little. “Yeah, me too. But, I never saw nana much, and she’s gone now. And I’m sad, but most of my family is much sadder, like distraught, and I feel like I should be with them. Because who knows when they’re going to be gone, you know?”

“Yeah,” Phil said strongly, “I do.” That was on of his biggest fears, one of the driving forces behind the way he loved people. Phil had always thought that one of the reasons him and Dan had different relationships with their families was because to Phil _family_ meant a desire to stay connected in the face of inevitable loss. He had his independence and his own life, but he still held on tightly because he still hated knowing that the gap between him and his parents at the age that they’d had him was slowly closing.

He’d always thought it ironic that Dan, amongst all his existential crises’, still believed that family was a constant, the white noise in the background of a conversation, the smell of barbeque on a summer night. He didn’t fear family’s impermanence, meanwhile Phil found it more and more difficult to look at photos of his parents when they were young.

(“Oh, but that’s life, Phil,” his mum had said to him once when he’d explained his fear. “You grow up, and then you don’t need us as much anymore.”

Phil was horrified. “Mum!” he’d chastised, but she’d just given him a wise-looking smile and then resumed flipping the pages in the photo album.)

Dan had returned to reading over the page about his high school experience and Phil, feeling self-conscious, decided that Dan’s last remark didn’t really even need a response anyway. He tapped the home button on his phone, and the screen lit up with the time. 5:17 P.M. And he hadn’t eaten since around 9 A.M. No wonder he was a little hungry. Then his eyes slid down on the screen and caught site of the date. Sunday, March 8th.

“What are we going to do about the book?” Phil asked. “Our deadline is at the end of the month. If the funeral is in three weeks but you want to go now, that doesn’t leave us much time to finish.”

Dan’s forehead creased, but he didn’t look up from the page. “Maybe we can get an extension. Or maybe we can work separately. I will work from my family’s house and I’ll skype you as you work from here. It won’t be much different from when you’re sitting here and I skype you from the office.”

Phil froze. “Dan, I’m going to go with you.”

Dan turned around quickly. “Really? I’m just – sorry,” Dan said, his face growing into a smile. “I must admit that I’m surprised you want to.”

Phil returned Dan’s smile and said, softly, carefully, “Yeah, of course.”

Because this was potentially treacherous ground for them. While Dan had spent a large amount of time with Phil and at Phil’s family’s house over the years, Phil had barely spent any time at Dan’s. They had spoken before about why, Dan explaining that home wasn’t a place he desired to go back to as much as Phil, Phil explaining that he always felt a little on edge there. It’s not that Dan’s parents weren’t nice to Phil. They were incredibly kind, perfectly welcoming, and they even went as far as to sending them adorable cards for every momentous day. But that made Phil’s – or Dan’s – slight discomfort with being around them even more confusing.

“I mean,” Phil continued, stepping away from this issue, “It just wouldn’t make sense for us to work on the book from different places. This book is all about us being together.”

Dan’s eyes softened. “True.”

“Plus,” Phil said as he got up from his seat and walked over to Dan, “I want to be there for you.”

He tapped Dan’s lap with his hand, letting him know he wanted Dan to slide back so that he could sit there. Dan obliged, and Phil fit himself into Dan’s lap as Dan’s arms circled his waist.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to come, just because you’re my boyfriend,” Dan said. He was half mocking Phil – they didn’t say the word ‘boyfriend’ about each other much anymore. At first it had felt like a rite of passage to them being comfortable with themselves and their relationship. But once they’d been together for 5 years, they’d decided that it felt a bit silly.

Phil rolled his eyes. “And suddenly I’m 25.”

“You know what I mean,’ Dan laughed.

“I know, and I don’t feel obligated. I want to come.” He reached up and bopped Dan on the nose. “I want to be there–,” he almost said _for_ , but then stopped himself, “– _with_ you.”

Dan thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay. I’ll let my mum know.”

\- - -

The first time that Phil met Dan’s parents, he was 23. Dan had just dropped out of uni, and his mum’s requirement for him moving in with Phil was that she would finally meet him. Phil of course was happy about this, as he’d known that Dan had been keeping him from her.

(“I am not,” Dan had insisted when he asked. “It’s just delicate.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “Mhm.”

They were doing dishes together, because Dan had insisted that Phil needed to do a better job of cleaning his own apartment. Dan splashed Phil with a bit of sink water.

“I mean, she knows. That I’m gay,” he insisted. That word was still new to Dan, and Phil could hear the way it pushed at the sides of his mouth as he pondered if it really fit him or not. “She knows.”

Phil counterattacked with a towel slap to Dan’s leg. “I know,” he said.

Dan giggled and then leaned over to kiss Phil on the cheek.

“I’m sure she’ll love you.”

“Okay,” Phil had said.

And she had loved Phil, at least as far as Phil could tell. But Dan was shaky and nervous the whole time. He kept making weird jokes about how they had similar hair styles, and he wasn’t acting like the Dan he knew. So, consequently, Phil acted different too. He laughed at Dan’s hair jokes and pretended like he was surprised when Dan’s mum commented that Dan actually had curly hair, as if he’d never seen him fresh out of the shower before.)

Phil hadn’t thought about that time in a while. He remembered it as he was cleaning the dishes after their dinner. It had been like that ever since then, he realized, that they were welcomed by Dan’s family, but they were always different versions of themselves when they were there. Phil wasn’t even sure that was their fault. They just didn’t know how to be a couple in front of Dan’s family, and they never had.

\- - -

They made plans to leave for Wokingham in two days. Dan bought the train tickets while Phil frantically began to pack, trying to think of all the things they’d need to not just be at Dan’s parents’ house for three weeks, but to work on the book there.

“They aren’t going to have the types of late night snacks we want there,” Phil said. “So we should buy them now and bring them.” He was standing in Dan’s room, staring at the large pile of unpacked things on Dan’s bed as Dan sat at his desk.

Dan leaned his head over the back of his chair and spoke to Phil while staring at the ceiling. “Or we could just buy them there. They do have grocery stores in Wokingham.”

“I guess. But I don’t want your parents to judge me for bringing fifty bags of onion crisps and twenty bottles of ribena into their house. I’d rather smuggle them in.” Phil began to fiddle with some of the shirts on Dan’s bed, picking them up and trying to fold them nicely like they do at department stores. He heard Dan walk over to him, and next thing he knew both of his wrists were captured in Dan’s hands.

“You are so strange. They’re not going to judge you. You think they never eat junk food just because they’re old?” he joked, bringing Phil’s wrists up to kiss one of his hands. “Well, scratch that,” he said mid-kiss. “My dad probably actually does never eat junk food. But I doubt my mum is above it.”

Phil tried to keep his facial expression steady and calm. “Okay.”

“They _like_ you, Phil,” he said, and suddenly Phil was 23 again.

(“They _like_ you, Phil,” Dan said repeatedly after Phil’s first meeting with his mum. He said it before every phone call, when they received every card. He said it when Dan went to go see them without Phil, he said it the few times that Phil went with him.

“I’m not as close to my family as you are,” he explained once when they were on the train to Wokingham. “Few people are,” he said with a little smile. “So I don’t know what you’re so worried about. After all, it would probably be a little weird if you were closer to my family than I was.”)

“I know,” Phil said, and he took a deep breath, “I’m just nervous. We’ve got a lot more to write.”

Dan took a step back, crossed his arms, and tilted his head up. “The sections about our apartments, the interviews with Becky and Jessica, why you were a weird kid, things you thought were true that weren’t,” he said, bringing up a finger for each section he listed. “I’ve _got_ it, Phil. I know what we’ve got to do, and so do you. So stop worrying about it.”

Phil knew this, he really did. And he liked seeing Dan in take-charge mode, so he smiled and brought up his hands in concession.

Dan sat down on his bed – right on top of some of his favorite shirts, which were already quite wrinkled – and Phil joined him. “Think about it this way. If we’re at my house, it’ll be a lot easier to dig up some probably embarrassing stuff from my childhood. So maybe we can expand those sections.”

“True.” Phil ran his finger over his knee in little circles, watching the pattern repeat itself and trying to calm the fear developing inside of him. Sometimes he gave himself a limit for how many times he could be nervous or insecure with Dan. It wasn’t a limit prescribed by Dan, and Dan would certainly hate it if he knew it existed, but one that Phil had created out of a fear that his anxieties would clash too much with Dan’s. He’d decided a long time ago that one of them always had to be acting calm or rational in a situation, otherwise it was disastrous. But he needed to try or he was going to burst.

“Why aren’t you more freaked out about this?” he asked quietly, still staring at his knee.

“The book? Well, I went through my whole panic about it when we got the book deal and had to decide what it was going to be about–”

“No, I mean about your grandma. Dying.”

Dan was quiet for a while after that, and because Phil was still looking at his knee, he could only hear him breathing.

“She was old,” he said softly.

“You just said that your parents were old.”

Phil heard Dan shift his body more towards him, and he looked up. Maybe this had worked.

“Phil, I was trying to be funny,” he said, his voice still very soft. “I meant that they are older than us. One step closer towards death. You know I always make jokes like that.”

“The jokes didn’t feel so real before.”

“Because this time it was made directly after someone died?” Phil nodded. “Well,” Dan said, a strange expression on his face, “that’s when we need humor as a coping mechanism most.”

Even though Phil was looking right at Dan, he wasn't really, because he was so inside his head. Something he had known about himself and Dan for a while was making itself so loudly known to Phil’s brain that he couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Normally, when you make your jokes I can just roll my eyes at it, or laugh it off, because I can tell myself that’s just how you are. But when you’ve made them over the past few days, it’s felt different. They’ve made me feel more nervous, more afraid.”

Dan’s face turned to amused again, and he gently set his hand on Phil’s shoulder. “You need to stop worrying about my feelings so much, Phil. They’re not your burden to take.”

“No,” Phil said, his voice growing in volume. “It’s not empathy. These are my own feelings.”

“But it wasn’t your grandma,” Dan said quickly, so quickly that Phil almost didn’t absorb it, and when he did it rendered him speechless for an awkward amount of time.

“I know,” he managed. “But I love you. So it still affects me.”

“But I’m fine,” Dan said, moving so that he was now kneeling on the floor in front of Phil, his hands on his knees as they had been the day before. “I’m not in a state about her death. So there’s no need to worry.”

“But I’m not _worrying_ , I’m–”  

“I’m always going to joke about death,” Dan said gently, “probably until the day I die. That’s how I feel more comfortable about the fact that it’s inevitable. It doesn’t feel so scary if I have the power to make it funny,” Dan said, and when he was done he leaned up and kissed Phil. Phil kissed him back, a bit delayed, and watched with curiosity as Dan leaned back, observing the satisfied look on his face, as if he thought he’d solved this particular issue.

(“You’re so good at solving my problems,” Dan had said to him once, when he was a little drunk, his head lying on Phil’s chest. “You’re like Bob the Builder. Phil the Problem Solver. I hope that when you are in my position–”

“And what position is that?” Phil interrupted, looking down at Dan as best he could at this angle. He couldn’t help the huge smile that had spread across his face. “Drunk on a Tuesday night?”

Dan pushed himself up so that his head was level with Phil’s, hands on either side of Phil’s body. “Stressed and scared,” he said, his voice startlingly sober now. “I hope that when you’re stressed and scared like this, you’ll be smart enough to not get drunk on a Tuesday, but also that I’ll be able to help you.”

Phil pushed Dan back down, wanting to return to the lighter tone of this conversation, and said, “I don’t know if you can handle all of the emotions up in here. I’ve got layers,” he said, adopting a botched scottish accent. “Ogres are like onions.” Dan laughed until he fell asleep.)

Phil knew that Dan’s explanation of his dark humor made sense. But he certainly did not work that way. Phil loved humor, loved being light-hearted, both for himself and as a personality for the internet. But he also used it as a defense against the dark, and when the reality of situation was creeping in on him he found it impossible to make it funny, to even think about it without risk of drowning inside all of his thoughts.   

Phil took in a shaky breath, wanting to admit something but also not fully knowing what his concern really was. “I can’t help feeling like this – your grandma dying in this way, at this busy time – was not how it was supposed to go,” he said.

“Life can go many ways.” Dan cracked a smile at him, and Phil winced, already knowing what was coming. “And it always ends in death.”

“Dan, please,” Phil said, dropping his face into his hands now. “That doesn’t help me.”

“Well, we’re at a big of an impasse,” he heard Dan said in an oddly amused voice. “Good thing we’ve agreed to not talk about it too much, then.”

Phil remained in his face cradle for a moment, then sighed and looked around the room. He knew he needed to change the subject now.

“Why aren’t you more freaked out about the fact that your clothes are so wrinkled?” he said after a moment, gesturing towards the pile of haphazardly rolled and folded clothes on the bed. “Are you seriously going to pack them like this? Because if you’re parents don’t make fun of you for that, I certainly will.”

Dan stood up, bringing a wrinkled shirt up with him in his hand, and then threw the shirt into Phil’s lap. “I know how to iron, you dingbat.”

“Uhuh. And so all those times you asked me to steam your pants before we want to a fancy BBC event–”

“That’s _steaming!”_ Dan explained with a little stomp. “What’s the difference between _ironing_ and _steaming_? Why do so many clothing labels insist that only one can be done? Is there some official letter people receive when they turn 21 on what the difference is? Because I never received it.”

Phil laughed, and then sighed again. They had made plans to leave for Wokingham in two days, and yet Dan surely wasn’t going to be packed until two minutes before they had to go.

\- - -

Dan was right that life can go many ways, and Phil secretly spent a lot of time thinking about that fact. He always liked to think that in one of those versions of life he became a professional linguist. In that universe, linguistics was what he had truly wanted to study, and not something that he fell into just because he was good at English. He probably became a linguistics professor – because what else could he do with that degree? – and taught more students like himself all about the importance of understanding cultural grammar differences and using punctuation marks properly. Or maybe he still became a Youtuber and made educational videos about the history of the Oxford Comma. Or maybe he used his knowledge of the internet to learn computational linguistics and worked on artificial intelligence – he had read somewhere that was a thing now – so that when the aliens came he was one of the first people who got to communicate with them.

Even in this current version of life, where Phil was not a linguist, he still loved linguistics because it could simplify things. Linguistics revealed the patterns behind sentences and sounds. It, by definition, was pragmatic and focused on defining semantics even when meaning itself can be such a fleetingly relative thing. And Phil wanted simple things. He wanted to know why things happened and why he felt the way he did about things and wanted to understand why some things made him want to walk into the ocean even though he was also afraid of deep water.

Death was so terrifying because it was both very simple and very complex. Death was the period, the final punctuation mark in life, and Phil didn’t like non-transitory things.

\- - -

The day before they left, Dan started playing the piano again. He had never officially stopped playing it, but their walls were thin, so Phil could always hear his playing, and it had been a while since he’d woken up way too early in the morning to the sound of Dan softly puttering around on the keys.

(Phil used to pretend to be grumpy when this happened, slumping into Dan’s room and falling face forward onto his bed.

“You woke me up,” he would whine, even though he knew that this was a sign that Dan hadn’t slept well, and wondered what was on Dan’s mind.

“You woke me up,” he would whine, and Dan knew that meant “Are you okay?” Phil never wanted to be too straight-forward, didn’t want to admit he was worried so early in the morning.)

Phil didn’t open his eyes at first, but just laid there and breathed slowly as he listened to Dan’s playing. It was pretty. Dan didn’t necessarily have amazing technical skills, and he knew that, but he always put a lot of emotion into what he played. This morning, he played some notes with fervor while others were so soft that it was as if he was brushing the key with a feather.

When Phil finally did open his eyes, he immediately squinted at the light streaming in around the curtains. He brought his hands up to his eyes, rubbed them, and then began searching for his glasses. His hand eventually bumped them on his nightstand and he put them on. The splotches of light zoomed into focus, and Dan’s soft piano playing continued to waft through the air.

Phil didn’t check his phone – his light headache was enough to tell him that it was startlingly early – and instead slowly walked from his room to Dan’s. He normally didn’t knock, but even the early time didn’t prevent Phil’s brain from going into sudden overdrive. _Was Dan okay? Had he not slept because he was sad about his grandma? Did he need more space than normal now?_ Phil shook his head at himself as all these thoughts ran through his head, and slowly turned the knob to Dan’s door.

The sound didn’t get much louder even as Phil stepped into Dan’s room – that’s how thin their walls were – and Dan stopped playing once Phil’s feet made the floor creak.

“Oh shit,” Dan said, turning around on the bench. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Phil smiled and sat down next to Dan, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. “That’s okay.” Dan snuggled into Phil’s arm. It was still a bit chilly in the early mornings. “Was that _Ingenue_?” Phil asked.

“Yeah. I woke up wanting to play, and that was the last thing I was learning, so I figured I should pick right back up there.”

“You were learning that during the holidays. When we got the book deal,” Phil said with a smile, and Dan nodded. That had been a good time – they had been so wildly excited by the fact that they’d not only gotten a book deal, but one that they felt truly happy with. They hadn’t really been struggling since they’d secured the BBC job and Dan’s subscriber count had shot up, but it felt so nice to know that their career was moving forward in a concrete way. It hadn’t been until January of this year that Dan went from gleeful to panicked and they had to slosh through the realities of actually putting together the book.

Dan brought Phil’s arm back from around his neck and asked, “Do you want to get in bed?”

Phil pretended to think about it. “Well, if I’m already awake….”

“Shut up and come to bed with me,” Dan laughed, and as he pulled Phil towards the bed Phil studied his face. Even though he was clearly exhausted – they had both been up way too late filming videos for the gaming channel to post while away – his eyes were bright. His brain was surely overflowing with book ideas, as was Phil’s, but Phil couldn’t help wondering – where did his grandma fit into all of this? Was there space for those feelings?

“What are you thinking about?” Dan asked as they curled up in Dan’s bed.

“Nothing.”

Dan sighed, “Liar. But that’s fine. You haven’t asked me if I’m okay with my dead grandma in over twelve hours, so you’re probably really struggling to keep it down.”

Phil’s mouth dropped open. “I am not!”

“It’s okay,” Dan said as he put his hand on the back of Phil’s neck and pulled his face closer to his.

“I’ll forgive you if you make out with me until I fall back asleep.”

Phil smiled. “I can do that.” He leaned forward the rest of the way on his own, and soon his lips met Dan’s. They kissed for a while like that, sleepy and gentle, and then Dan opened his mouth and melted into Phil even more.

Phil pushed back into Dan as best he could. Making out was good. Making out meant that he couldn’t concentrate on other worse things, like the fact that Dan’s grandma’s body was probably being cremated somewhere, and the emotional intensity that was waiting for them at Dan’s house, and _what would my life have been like if I became a linguist?_ Nope. None of those thoughts could take control right now. It was just Dan’s mouth, and his hands in Phil’s hair, and the morning hard ons that they’d both had that were now intensifying.

“We probably won’t be able to have a lot of sex when we’re at my parent’s house,” Dan said breathlessly, his lips moving away from Phil’s for the first time.

Phil leaned his head back against the pillow and breathed for a moment, reorienting himself from his inner bad thoughts versus Dan vortex back into reality.

“We always did it at mine,” he said, “even though we knew my parents were there.”

“I mean, yeah. We did. And we _can_ do it at my house if you want, but….” Dan trailed off, and Phil knew what he was trying to say.

“But?” he countered, even though his brain could easily fill in the blank. _But I feel differently about you being at my house than you do about me being at yours._ He forced himself to roll onto his side and look Dan in the eyes. Dan met his gaze and held it, confirming Phil’s thought that it – whatever _it_ was, this gap, this difference – was weighing on both of their minds.

“When it was your parents you were the one at greater risk of embarrassment,” Dan said eventually, his voice light, “And this time it’ll be my ass on the line.” He rolled all the way onto Phil’s chest this time and wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist, tight.

“I’m just not sure I can promise to keep quiet enough,” he whispered into Phil’s ear.

Phil laughed, surprised at how easy it was for him to let Dan have that reasoning.

“Challenge accepted,” he whispered back, and then they were kissing again. Phil figured that he should have sex in his own home with his boyfriend, while he could, and enjoy it.

\- - -

The train held a lot of memories for both Dan and Phil. At the beginning of their relationship, they’d taken it back and forth to see each other many times. They’d hauled all their shit onto the train in a series of trips when they’d moved to London. Phil had a lot of nostalgia for that time, for late nights spent packing and naps taken on each other’s shoulders and scruffy haired Dans.   

As they sat across from each other on the 10 AM train to Wokingham – the morning train had been packed enough that they weren’t able to reserve seats next to each other, and Dan wanted to get home as early in the day as possible – Phil thought that every train they stepped onto was full of the ghosts of Dans past.

When they’d moved to London, they’d similarly hauled their asses onto an early train – although it had been much, _much_ earlier – and then curled into each other with exhaustion. Even though Phil had known every version that Dan had been since meeting him, and had learned to love every single one, he was most fond in retrospect of that sleepy 21-year-old Dan. He still had a definite baby face then, with extra soft skin and rosy cheeks that still darkened whenever Phil kissed him. His hair had been straight and parted to the left, the strands creating a stark 45-degree angle across his forehead.

Phil propped his arms behind his head and stared at the Dan sitting in front of him. He was hunched over – their posture had not gotten any better over the years – and staring at his phone. He still meticulously straightened his hair, but his fringe was much shorter and made him look more mature. His face was still devoid of hair, and a little less rosy, but he smiled more now and it showed in the form of little stretch marks by his eyes. Dan’s happiness made this Dan his favorite current Dan, as even he had to admit that 21-year-old Dan had been riddled with insecurities that made him miserable. He was fond of that Dan only because he had still been a kid, really, a boy growing up, and Phil was scared by the prospect of Dan becoming a man. He held onto the ghosts of Dan in those moments not because he didn’t love the current one, but because what does it mean that they’ve known so many versions of each other?

Phil felt a little like a ghost version of himself that day. He was sleepy and had a stress hangover from yelling at Dan to get all his stuff packed one minute before they had to leave for the station. Dan had been his usual confident yet flailing self and had kissed Phil on the cheek before they’d left as an apology, and normally that would be enough to get Phil back to his normal self. But, today he felt not himself, as if he was in-between two places. He didn’t like new experiences when he wasn’t in control, he realized, and he hated not knowing how this visit was going to go.

(“You look on edge,” Dan had said once they’d first boarded the train.

“I feel on edge.”

“There’s no need to be stressed,” Dan said as he sat down across from Phil. “We’re on the train now. There’s very little that can go wrong. I even packed your favorite travel snacks,” he said, pulling out a bag of dried mangos and a bag of popcorn.

Phil smiled and took the bag of dried mangos, feeling like it was still a little early for popcorn.

“It’s like you’re sleepwalking today,” Dan said gently as Phil started to chew on a piece.” I left you in the station to go to the bathroom, and when I came back you were standing in the exact same place, staring at the exact same Nivea advert you’d been looking at when I left.”

“I was trying to look inconspicuous,” Phil murmured as people continued to rush past them to find their seats. “To make sure that no fans came up to me.”

“Yes, because a normal guy in the train station spends ten minutes staring at a Nivea advert.”

“Hey, I’m weird. Let me live.”

Right as Phil spoke, two people came and sat down in the seats next to them. He held eye contact with Dan as they did, and Dan gave him a little smile. Phil could feel Dan silently saying what would have been his response: _Yes, you’re weird, and it makes me adore you_. But they were in public now, and in a different mode, so the comment lurked in the space between their bodies.)

Phil must have fallen asleep at some point in the journey, because next thing he knew Dan was gently shaking him awake. “Hey,” Dan whispered. “We’re here.” Phil opened his eyes to find himself looking straight into Dan’s. Then the white noise of the people around them hit his ears, and he remembered they were in public. He shifted in his seat, very aware of Dan’s hand on his shoulder, his fingers gently pressing into the fabric of his t-shirt.

“I’m awake.”

“Okay,” Dan said, and he leaned back and started to gather their stuff, even picking up Phil’s backpack and putting it on his own back.

Maybe that was for the best, because Phil really did feel groggy. He slowly stretched his legs and stood up from his seat. “Is someone meeting us at the station?”

Dan stilled for a moment, and then resumed bringing their suitcase down from the overhead rack. “No. I figured we could take a taxi to my parents’ house.” Dan gave him a look then, and Phil understood. One last moment of privacy.  

Phil used the luxury of their taxi ride to doze in and out with his head on Dan’s shoulder. It was a silly thing for him to do maybe, considering how weird he’d felt about Dan’s touching him just a few minutes earlier, but he felt safer knowing there was only one other person in this vehicle, and they were looking at the road.

It had been a little over a year since Phil had been to Dan’s house, but he still recognized his street when they turned onto it. There was a park nearby, which Phil had walked to before, and he lifted his head and stared as they drove past it. Dan’s family’s home was a tan-colored two story house at the end of the street. The taxi driver slowed considerably as they neared it, clearly waiting for Dan to point out the exact house, but Dan didn’t say anything. Phil cleared his throat and said, “It’s that one.”

That made Dan spring to life, and he sat up straight and followed Phil’s pointed finger. “Ah, yes,” Dan added. “That’s correct. You can pull over right here if you want.”

The driver slowed the car to the stop and then got out to help get their bags out of the trunk. Phil slid himself out of the seat and stepped onto the sidewalk. He waited there while Dan paid the driver. He realized that there was something strange about how _Dan_ was taking care of _him_ today. He hadn’t intended that to happen, and his stomach twisted into knots as he watched Dan grab their bags. But these were just the sides of the bed they had woken up on today: Dan the caretaker and Phil the zombie.

Phil followed Dan up the front walkway, where he then stopped in front of the door and passed his backpack to Phil.

“I could search through all of the shit in here to find my key, but I’d rather not,” he said. “Are you okay with me just ringing the doorbell? That means everyone will come greet us.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Phil said, and the knots in his stomach were tightening, and so he impulsively shot his hand out to grab Dan’s. “Thank you for taking care of me today. I’m sorry I’ve been so out of it.”

“Phil,” Dan said, his voice so soft and light, as if he was almost hurt that Phil had even said anything. “Anytime and every time, you know that.” Phil smiled in response as Dan pressed the doorbell. “You are doing me a favor by coming here with me,” Dan added, but before Phil could respond Dan’s mum opened the door.

“Dan,” she said with relief, and immediately walked out to pull Dan into a hug.

“Hi, mum,” Dan said, his voice a bit smothered. “Let us at least come inside. It’s a bit chilly out here.”

Phil watched as Dan hugged his mum, thinking that she looked tired, but then also thinking that maybe he hadn’t seen her enough to know what tired looked like on her. He knew only a few things about her, like that her name was Megan, but that he’d never called her that before out of fear of being rude.

Megan eventually let go of Dan and ushered them in, pulling their suitcase behind her. “Hi, Phil,” she said once the door was shut behind them. Phil went in for a hug, because she seemed to be in a hugging mood, and realized then that he’d never hugged her before.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“So am I. But it was expected, at least. Sometimes that’s better than something coming out of nowhere.”

A cold seemed like out of nowhere to Phil, but he supposed they had all known about her lung disease, and so that must have made difference.

“How’s dad doing?” Dan asked.

“Oh,” Megan said as a response, and she just waved her hand as if that should be enough. Phil saw Dan’s forehead crinkle. “I was so touched when you said you wanted to come be with us before the funeral. It seemed truly out of character.” Then she paused, her face frozen in position, and Phil could see her brain calculating what her words had sounded like. “Oh, Dan.” She let out a huge sigh, and for a horrible moment Phil thought she might start to cry. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay,” Dan said, laughing a bit. “I understand.”

There was a moment of silence as Dan’s laugh trailed off, and Phil felt himself grow more and more self-conscious. Even though he knew neither of them were really paying attention to them, he felt as though he stuck out. He wasn’t an integrated part of their rapport, which felt odd to him.  

“Oh, here mum,” Dan said, pulling a small envelope out of his jacket pocket and handing it to her.

“What is it?”

“It’s a card. It’s mostly for dad, but also for everyone. For the whole family, from me and Phil.” Phil tuned out of his own head and back into what was happening then. Dan must have noticed his sudden glance, as he leaned towards Phil’s ear and whispered, “I went off and bought a condolences card while you were staring at the Nivea advert. I signed it from both of us. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course,” Phil said, and then leaned forward to catch a glance of the card as Dan’s mum studied it. It was a pretty nice looking card for one bought at a train station convenience store. It was cream colored and had a picture of roses on the right side. On the left it said “no one can take away your loving memories. But life must go on, and sometimes we live for others.” Under the message Dan had written a note, but his handwriting was small and messy enough that Phil could only make out the final signature. Dan had signed the card _Dan & Phil _.

Dan’s mum finished reading the card and closed it while Phil was still staring at it. She looked up and smiled at them, her eyes a bit teary, and went in for another hug with Dan. She then turned to smile at Phil again, placing her hand on his shoulder. “I am always so happy to know that Dan has such a supportive person in his life. I think it’s especially important that we lean on our loved ones, especially in times like these.”

“Yes,” Phil said, “I agree.” But he wasn’t really listening. His mind was still with the card, and he was going over it again and again in his mind. Whatever she had said had clearly pleased Dan though, as he could see Dan smiling at him out of the corner of his eye. Phil gave a quick smile back as Dan followed his mum out of the living room and into the kitchen, leaving Phil behind.

\- - -

Dan had signed the card _Dan & Phil _ . All in Dan’s handwriting, a messy rendition of his own name, a curvy ampersand, and then Phil’s name. Phil had seen his name in Dan’s handwriting before, but he was still caught up on how different it looked. Messy but worshiped, like it also belonged to Dan in some way. Phil had never before thought that writing another person’s name on a card to your family was intimate, but now he couldn’t shake the feeling. Something about the ampersand made their names look even more adjoined than usual, with the ending swish of the ampersand leading the reader straight from Dan’s name to Phil’s. Phil wondered what it meant for them to be an _and_ , always separated at the hip, not even letting a space come between them.

Dan had signed the card _Dan & Phil _, and that was an incredibly sweet and meaningful thing to do, but as Phil stood alone in Dan’s living room he felt himself grow more and more fearful.


	2. Conjunctions

Dan’s family was, as Phil had expected, incredibly kind to him. For the rest of that day they sat at the patio table in their backyard and talked. They were all there: Dan, Phil, Dan’s mum,  _ and  _ Dan’s dad. It was a bit chilly, so they were all wrapped up in jackets, but Dan’s dad had said he wanted to sit outside and they were clearly making sure he got what he wanted at the moment. 

Dan’s dad asked Phil a lot of questions about his point of view on their book. Phil guessed that Dan had told his family his thoughts right after they’d signed the contract – although how honest he had been Phil couldn’t be sure.

“Dan told us that you both turned down a lot of offers before landing on this one. Why was that?” Dan’s father asked. His name was John, but again Phil had never called him that. In fact, in the past Phil had spoken to him the least, as he occupied a certain masculine air that made Phil feel uncomfortably self-aware. But despite his formality he seemed like a nice person, one willing to ask a lot of questions before making a decision about someone.

“There were a lot of different factors to consider. We started to receive book offers in mid-2013, but at that point it felt like we weren’t big enough for it to be worthwhile.”

John frowned. “You received an offer from a publisher. Doesn’t that signify that you were big enough?”

Phil had a feeling that John wanted Dan to jump at every opportunity handed to him, a side effect of not really understanding how YouTube worked as a career. He likely didn’t feel like it involved complex business decisions, as Phil did. When Phil answered he spoke slowly, trying to use clear words but not wanting to seem like he was speaking condescendingly. 

“You would think. But we didn’t want to write a book to signify a peak in our career. We wanted to write a book to  _ create  _ a peak in our career. That meant thinking very carefully about timing and content. In 2013 we didn’t feel like we were big enough yet that we could create more hype with our book. With the way we’ve done it now, our book is going to be like a love letter to the people who watch our videos, and so it’s going to show others that there is this whole community they should want to join.”

“Phil’s a marketing genius,” added Dan, and Phil could see out of the corner of his eye that Dan was beaming at him. He loved when Phil talked business.

“Interesting,” John commented after a moment where he’d clearly been thinking everything over. Phil felt like he’d been given an invisible pat of approval. “What other factors did you need to think about?” he asked.

“Oh. Um,” Phil stumbled and glanced at Dan, who was now staring off at the yard as if he’d forgotten about the conversation. “Whether we were ready for the extra publicity and pressure a book would put on us, I guess,” Phil managed. Which was true. They had to think about that constantly now. They had gone through so many ups and downs in their level of comfort with the world suspecting they were a couple. At one point they had tried to keep their careers clearly separate in order to protect their relationship, so for them to be offered a book deal together was a big change.

Phil wondered if Dan’s family ever thought about that – how their career was now mirroring their personal lives. They had never asked about it, so maybe it had never crossed their mind. Maybe Phil and Dan writing a book together seemed like a given for them. Phil thought about the card again, and how Dan had signed their names together, and he didn’t know why it was affecting him so goddamn much but it made him feel warm and happy and scared all at once.

“Well, we’re certainly proud of you both, and we hope you know that,” Dan’s mum said. 

“Thanks, mum,” Dan said. “We do.” Then he wrapped his jacket even more tightly around his chest and asked. “So is there any funeral planning I can help out with?”

Dan’s mum smiled sadly at him. “We haven’t really thought about anything but the date yet.”

“Well, I’m happy to help you think about that stuff. I’m sure there’s some way I can help.”

Phil was staring at Dan’s face, watching the wrinkles on his forehead shift as his facial expression shifted from nervous to eager. He wondered why Dan was pushing so hard for something to do, when it seemed to him like their schedule was already full with book work and family time. He thought about asking, but something about the possibility of having three sets of Howell eyes on him made him feel tongue-tied.

But just then Dan’s mum leaned forward and asked the very question that had been on Phil’s mind. “Not that it’s completely unlike you, but why are you so eager to help, Dan?”

Dan slipped down in his seat a bit. “I just want to do some of the harder stuff,” he said, his voice becoming even softer. “So that, you know, dad doesn’t have to.”

That seemed to convince his mum, and Phil saw his dad give a little smile as well. He immediately felt shitty for bristling up at Dan’s request. Of  _ course  _ Dan wanted to help, why wouldn’t he? His grandma had just  _ died _ , a link to his family that he had relied the impermanence of for years had suddenly disintegrated. It made complete sense for Dan to want to help out right now.

“Okay, dear,” Dan’s mum said. “I suppose we need to confirm with the church that our chosen date will work. You could start with that.” Dan just nodded in response, but he looked relieved. Then, Dan’s mum turned to Phil and said. “Are you feeling alright here, Phil? We don’t want you to feel strung along with all this serious planning.”

“Oh, not at all,” Phil said quickly. “I am here for support,” he said, gesturing to Dan, “and to help out as well.”

“If you’re offering, and we’re kicking off the preparations anyway, then why don’t you look into some good flower arrangements? You look like you have good taste,” she said, leaning forward to tap Phil’s check, and he felt himself blush. “I think the church has some set vendors for funerals, but I’m not sure we’ll like them. You could go with Dan to find out what they are.”

“Phil needs to work on the book,” Dan said, and he spoke so quickly that his voice cut off the end of his mum’s sentence.

Phil felt like his reaction was delayed, but it might have only been a few seconds. Dan’s words hit him immediately, but it took a while for their meaning to unfold, and Phil felt a familiar feeling of doubt grow in his stomach. Phil made sure that both his face and voice were very subdued when he said, “I do?”

“Yeah,” Dan said. He looked Phil in the eyes like this was nothing, like he wasn’t covertly telling Phil that he didn’t want him to help out with the funeral planning, and so Phil’s doubt sharply changed course. “I’m nervous about our progress.”

“You’ve been doing most of the work on the content recently,” Phil said slowly. “I’m not sure I know where to start.”

“Can you finish up the section on our childhood diaries?”

“But that’s your section.”

Dan shrugged. “I trust you.”

And that seemed to be the end of the conversation. Dan’s mum continued talking, telling Dan about how to get to the church (“I remember, mum,” Dan insisted. “Geez, it hasn’t been  _ that  _ long since I was last there), and Dan made a joke about how his soul was likely far too dark for him to step foot inside (“Oh, Dan,” his mum sighed. “I know you’re joking, but really!”), and Dan’s dad remained silent, likely from grief.

Dread was slowly replacing the doubt in Phil’s stomach. He was sure that Dan did trust him. But even then, he would never give Phil control over one of his sections. Dan was a control freak who spent hours agonizing over the quality of a single minute of his new video. Dan insisted editing all of the gaming videos, and if Phil edited them he’d sometimes catch Dan later going in to make some last-minute changes. Dan wouldn’t let Phil look at any of his works in progress. And Dan cared strongly about this book, maybe even too strongly. Phil knew there was a lot of his panic about the future pressed into the pages of their draft.

But Dan had just asked him to takeover, and so something was definitely up. Maybe Dan was trying to avoid something. Maybe that thing was Phil, maybe it was Phil getting involved in the funeral. Phil could imagine that maybe Dan wanted it to remain his own thing. But it was unlike Dan to not talk to him about it first…. The many thoughts and  _ maybes  _ circled in Phil’s head like hawks, and he wondered how he had gotten from the taxi ride, his head on Dan’s shoulder, to here. 

He zoned back into the conversation when Dan’s mum said his name in a story about his and Dan’s most recent trip to VidCon. Her face beamed with pride as she mentioned that his grandma had loved watching the videos of him and Dan onstage, and had thought Phil was so adorable. He grimaced, as for some reason that just made him feel worse.

\- - -

Dan had panicked when they signed the book deal. They’d been fielding different offers for about a year, and they’d chosen this one based on its timing and the fact that it would allow them to have the most creative control. They were close to the happiest they’d ever been after that – it felt like their career was really taking off. That Christmas was one of the best ever, with Dan constantly playing the piano and Phil baking cookies every other day. (“I can’t believe you haven’t burned any yet,” Dan had said as he bit into one, his eyes glittering at Phil. “Shut up,” Phil had said, swatting at his ass with an oven mitt. Dan ducked forward to kiss Phil on the forehead, and then scurried off).

But when the holidays ended and January hit, Dan’s perfectionist tendencies awoke and he descended into panic, because  _ sure  _ they had  _ gotten  _ a book deal, but what on earth were they going to write a book about?

(“I don’t want to do another one of those YouTuber advice books,” Dan had said huffily. He was pacing back and forth in his room, Phil lying on his bed.

“I  _ know _ . You’ve said that so many times.”

Dan sat down next to Phil and pulled a notebook up from the floor. “I was up until like four writing down ideas last night,” he said. “They’re all shit.”

Phil picked up the notebook and studied the page Dan had flipped to.

“I think you’re overthinking this,” he said gently. “Let’s not turn this into a dinof video panic spiral.”

Dan frowned. “Hey, don’t make fun of my creative process.”

Phil nudged Dan’s leg with his, sensing that comment had actually gotten to him, as even Dan had a love-hate relationship with his own content making habits. “I’m sorry. I just want you to actually enjoy this and not make yourself miserable.”

“I know. Me too,” Dan said. “It’s just…so…ugh!” Dan grabbed the pillow that was near his head and slammed it down on top of his face.

“Hey,” Phil said, his voice as soft as ever, his hand placed gently on top of Dan’s pillow-face. “We just need to write about something that feels really natural to us.”

“To  _ us _ ,” Dan echoed, and he removed the pillow to meet Phil’s eyes. Because they  _ were  _ writing this book  _ together _ , and that was a decision they had purposefully made but one that had also been a little glossed over in conversation. They both knew what they wanted to do, probably needed to do, and were both still terrified by it.

“Want to go film a gaming video?” Dan said as a way to break the silence, because after all the gaming channel had been their test run of this.)

_ This  _ being them, together, not just in their life but in their career.  _ This  _ being their brands merging so that their individual quirks didn’t just exist on their own but relied on a rhythm they’d established with each other. It wasn’t just that Dan was dark and full of expletives, but that Phil was bright and innocent. Dan’s existential dread could become exhausting on its own if it wasn’t for Phil’s optimism. Phil is not on fire would probably always be their funniest piece of content, even though it was just them together in a room with nothing specific to do, because they had a rhythm, a repertoire, and they played off of each other, maybe needed each other. As much as this used to make them uncomfortable, they knew it was happening, knew that you couldn’t just say “Dan” or “Phil” but “Dan and Phil.”

And they had started to let this merging happen because they were lazy, and as much as Dan insisted that they weren’t a duo they still helped each other out with everything. As the number of years they had been together grew their fear of being boxed in with each other faded away, and they decided they might at least use it to their advantage. At that point, creating the gaming channel seemed like a good step to take.

(Phil had helped Dan brainstorm for the next few days, and he suggested things like an expansion of their gaming channel with a gaming guide or a book on how to deal with bullying. Dan suggested a dictionary of memes, or travel guide of their favorite places, and then quickly decided both of those ideas were way too tacky and the fact that he’d even suggested them made him hate himself.

Phil knew that all of these ideas seemed like placeholders, just ways to pass the time until they landed on the true answer. But Phil never overtly suggested they write a book about  _ them _ , together, and everything they were. 

It was Dan who actually pitched the idea a day later.

“We have this whole fandom surrounding us,” he had said in a soft voice. They were lying on the couch watching TV, and Dan was lying with his head in Phil’s lap so that Phil could give him a head massage. His hair was curly and kinked that day, which made it more difficult for Phil, but he still loved doing it and watching as Dan slowly relaxed.

“We do,” Phil said, stopping mid-massage. “Is…is this a good thing or a bad thing right now?” It was a question they always asked each other – or, at least, Phil always asked Dan – when they were speaking about their fans. Was it a good thing or a bad thing at the moment? Was it making them want to dance in circles or lie facedown on the carpet?

“A good thing,” he said, his voice still sounding kind of dreamy, like he might be half-asleep. “At this moment I think it seems really amazing. Kind of beautiful. I never dreamed I would be a part of creating something so cool and unique.” Phil nodded in agreement and resumed massaging Dan’s head. 

“We could write our book about that, you know. Sort of like a guide to our fans and all the inside jokes and stuff.”

Dan’s voice had suddenly become more awake, and Phil froze. There it was, the idea, probably the best idea they could ever come up with for this, and Phil could tell Dan was serious. He took a deep breath and moved forward slowly, playing his businessman angle. “Then would the book be just for them?” he asked.

“No, I think there would be wider audience appeal. For people who are curious. Or then in the future it can be like a sort of orientation guide to new fans.” Phil smiled, because he’d certainly been rubbing off on Dan over the years, and he could hear his own thought process in Dan’s analysis. He felt Dan’s hand touch his cheek and he looked back down to meet his eyes. “Do you not like the idea?” Dan asked.

“No,” Phil said quickly, “I really do. It’s what I’ve been thinking from the beginning.”

He thought that would make Dan happy, but instead he dropped his hand down to his lap and rolled his eyes. “You just didn’t want to bring it up because you thought I would panic,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

“No, not panic.” Phil gently pushed Dan’s head off his lap so that they could sit facing each other. “It’s just that creative planning stresses you out, and our visibility as a branded pair stresses you out, so I didn’t want to push that combination too quickly.”

“I’m not  _ that  _ fragile.”

Phil could tell that Dan was really annoyed about this, but he didn’t know what else to say. Dan would often say that he wasn’t that fragile, and then the opposite would end up being true. It was a place where their branding rang far too true: Dan would deal with things by melting away – having an existential crisis, you could say – and so Phil had to remain stoic and logical. There wasn’t room for either of them to shift their behavior.

“You can’t be afraid to tell me things,” Dan continued.

“I’m not,” Phil said. “I just feel like these are the roles we play.”)

So they kept playing these roles. Which is why when Dan’s grandma died Phil didn’t feel like he could panic. But  _ Dan  _ not panicking, Dan not fulfilling his pre-established role left Phil feeling off-balance and unchecked, like someone had changed the plot of the play he was in and he hadn’t gotten an updated script.

\- - -

Eventually the sun set and Dan’s family members started to wander off to do their own things. They all scavenged dinner separately from leftovers in the fridge, and then Dan and Phil went to the room where they were staying. Dan’s room no longer existed as it had when he lived at home, as his brother had quickly moved into it. Therefore, they were staying in a guest room that Dan’s mum had made up to look like a nice hotel room.

“Your mum could run a bed and breakfast,” Phil said. Dan chuckled slightly but didn’t give a response, which left Phil disappointed. He was in a state where nothing seemed right or normal, even though everything probably was, and so he overthought every little interaction he had.

He tried again. “You tired?”

Dan had just flopped his body onto the bed. “Yeah,” he groaned. “About halfway through today I really wanted a nap. Since I didn’t get one I feel like I’m going to just pass out.”

“Yeah, me too,” Phil lied. A good night’s sleep sounded amazing, but he couldn’t shake the events of the day: Dan’s mum suggesting that he also help out and go to the church with Dan, Dan quickly saying  _ Phil needs to work on the book _ , saying  _ No _ ,  _ I don’t want Phil to come with me,  _ or  _ I don’t want Phil to be involved in this family event _ .

Phil poked Dan in the side repeatedly and reminded him that he should still brush his teeth before passing out or he’ll regret it in the morning, and finally Dan groaned and got up. While Dan was in the bathroom, Phil wondered what he should do. He recognized insecure thoughts when he heard them. He recognized the combination of doubt and self-deprecation running through his head. And he wanted to keep them to himself, but he also wasn’t supposed to be the self-deprecating one, so he didn’t know how to sit with that dissonance.

So about an hour later, when they were lying next to each other in bed, he worked up the courage to ask Dan about it. 

“Why didn’t you want me to come with you to the church today?” he whispered. Dan might not have even been awake anymore, as they’d been lying in silence for a while, but Phil was never going to fall asleep if he didn’t at least try.

Phil held his breath for what felt like a minute, but then Dan replied, “Did I not want you to come?”

“When your mum suggested I come along to the church you immediately said I needed to stay back and work on the book. I didn’t even get a say.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dan responded.

Phil blinked up into the cloud of darkness between him and the ceiling. If he was at home in his room he would be able to imagine what was behind that darkness, and he felt anxious knowing that he didn’t know what this room’s ceiling looked like. 

“Okay. That’s not an answer to my question.”

Dan sighed. “I didn’t, like, purposefully think ‘ _ Oh, I don’t what that Phil guy to come with me to the church. I hate that guy. He needs to stop following me around everywhere _ .’” Normally Phil would’ve found that funny, but tonight his anxiety was too strong, and it struck his insecurities right in the nose.

“Dan,” he whined. Dan giggled and rolled over to wrap his arms around Phil’s middle section, and Phil saw him frown when he noticed the nervous expression on Phil’s face. 

“I wasn’t trying to avoid you. I’m honestly just stressed about the book, Phil. That’s not a lie.” Phil believed it wasn’t a lie, but sensed it was maybe a half-truth. Dan had a bad habit of telling those, and Phil really didn’t like them.

“Can you cuddle me?” Dan said with big eyes, and Phil could tell that he was trying to be subtly shut up, but he was willing to fall for it. He wrapped his arms around Dan’s torso and pulled him close, so that his nose was right up against the back of Dan’s neck.

But he still felt like he might never fall asleep. His mum always said that when she couldn’t sleep she would just make a list in her head about all of the things she needed to do the next day and that would bore her to sleep. Phil knew that thinking about tomorrow’s book work would just make him stressed, so he tried to think about boring things: silent films, taxes, plain socks, football, linguistics….

It would’ve angered Phil’s old linguistics professors to know, but he didn’t think conjunctions were just singular words. Besides  _ and  _ and  _ but  _ and  _ if _ there was  _ The Amazing Book is Not on Fire  _ and  _ Phil is not on fire. _ Words and moments and things that tied Dan and Phil together. The pure chance that made them, as two distinct people, exist and collide at the same point in time and space.

Phil couldn’t help but think that there were a dozen versions of them out there, all connected to each other in different ways, created by a thousand different iterations of the butterfly effect. He thought that some of those Dans and Phils aren’t together not because it didn’t work out, but because they never met. And while that thought scared him, right now he was more scared by the unshakable permanence of words and conjunctions that tied them together. Because as much as Phil sometimes hated the thought of being alone, it was so much scarier to have the one he wanted forever in his arms and still feel worried.

\- - -

The next couple days went the same as the first. Everyone would get up and gather in the kitchen for breakfast, which Dan’s mum always made. (“There was never this much of a spread when I lived here,” Dan whispered to Phil one morning as he piled some eggs on his plate. “I think she’s doing this to try to lift peoples’ spirits.”) She even made pancakes one morning, telling Phil with a smile that they were just for him, and this made his stomach do excited flips and an uncomfortable drop all at the same time.

And then by lunch there were tasks to be done. Dan’s first request to help had pushed everything into motion. With the church and a date locked down, they now needed to confirm with the cemetery, choose music, pick flowers, and find a caterer. The list was even longer than that, and just hearing Dan’s mum rattle off the long list made Phil feel overwhelmed.

Dan’s mum seemed to feel the same way, because when she finished she dropped the piece of paper she’d been reading from on the table and let out a huge sigh. “That’s going to take a lot of organizing.”

“Don’t worry, mum,” Dan said, leaning forward to place his hand on top of hers. “This is why I came early to help.” Dan’s mum glanced into his face with a smile, and Phil could tell that at that moment Dan was probably on the top of her good list.

Before Phil knew what he was doing, he said, “Me too.” Dan’s mum turned to him with the same bright eyes.

“Bless you, Phil,” she said. “Bless both of you.” And just the warmth in her voice made Phil smile.

“Phil is too sweet,” Dan said, although he was staring down at his plate. “But don’t pile him up with tasks. Remember, mum, Phil is here to make sure I don’t accidentally ruin our career with my absent mindedness,” Dan said with a forced laugh. Then he turned to his dad and said, “Remember how I always tell you there’s a lot of strategy and business skills involved in being a successful YouTuber? Well, Phil is mister businessman,” Dan said with a grin, tapping Phil on the arm. “A master of branding and PR.”

Dan’s dad eyed Phil over his glass of iced tea. “Are you, Phil?”

Phil’s mouth lingered open for a few moments, and then he snapped it shut and straightened his back. He couldn’t pass up this opportunity to impress, and he knew that Dan had known that. “Yes, sir.”

Dan’s dad grimaced. “No need to call me sir. My name is John.”

Phil let himself have a second of relief. Of course, in the end he hadn’t ever had the courage to  _ ask _ and was instead being directed, but still. “Yes, John,” he repeated, and Dan’s dad smiled in response.

“I’m happy Dan has you,” he said. “To be here, and support him in general.”

“Oh,” Phil said. “It’s nothing.”

Then John looked down at his plate, his chin slightly tucked towards his neck. “There’s nothing like remembering that families grow to disrupt the sadness of another family member has passed away,” he murmured, and Phil wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to hear it. Dan perked up, and the surprised look on his face meant he had most certainly heard it too. He then tried to make eye contact with Dan, but instead of meeting his eyes Dan immediately bent his head back down towards the table and resumed eating.

Phil, feeling daring, reached his arm out to close the short distance between them and slightly tugged on Dan’s sleeve. That did the trick, as Dan looked up at him suddenly. He stared at Dan, trying to read his face, feeling very conscious of the fact that Dan’s parents could very well be staring at them as they have this interaction. He wanted to ask Dan a bunch of questions but knew from the look of determination on Dan’s face that he probably wasn’t going to get him alone for the rest of the day.

“Are you okay?” he mouthed at Dan.

Dan made a tiny smile with his lips and mouthed back, “I’m fine.” The interaction wasn’t satisfying at all, and left Phil feeling rather isolated, but he figured it was the best he was going to get.

\- - -

So,  _ fine _ , Phil threw himself into managing their book and branding.

As people cleared out of the kitchen for the day – Dan and his mum went out to run errands and Dan’s dad returned to his room – Phil set himself up with his laptop in the living room. There was an extremely comfy couch facing a fire place and television, and Phil found himself quickly slipping into a nice slouching position. Normally he might be at risk of falling asleep, but today he felt adrenaline and determination coursing through him.

He worked first on Dan’s sections – finishing up the essay on why Phil can’t have a hamster and advice on how to become a YouTuber, which ironically was solely Dan’s idea. (“I thought no advice giving?” Phil had asked, to which Dan had snapped back, “This is different. This is advice that it makes sense for us to give.” Phil had smiled at Dan’s attitude and patted his head, because  _ boy _ was Dan insecure about his content preferences.)

But it didn’t take him that long to fill in the blanks in Dan’s drafts, so he soon found himself staring at the laptop screen, his cursor hovering over the current end of their draft. Dan hadn’t given him any more instructions, and they had no more partially completed sections to finish. They normally ran new ideas by each other before starting a draft. But Phil was feeling testy and smart – he wanted to come up with brilliant ideas that would leave Dan speechless.

He opened a new word document and started typing out a list of types of content that were popular:

\-         _ Aesthetic pictures _

\-         _ Personality quizzes _

\-         _ Cute animals _

\-         _ Parallels of them getting older _

\-         _ Bloopers _

After about five minutes of brainstorming and typing he leaned back and studied the list. There were several good ideas on it, but bloopers seemed to easiest thing to piece together today. Before he had really thought it through, he had opened up a new word document and begun crafting an outline for  _ Behind the Scenes of DanAndPhilGAMES _ .

(They’d spent an extremely long time trying to think of a name for the gaming channel. Dan had, of course, come up with a list of possible names. But, unexpectedly, Phil was the resistance this time.

They had been sitting on the couch in the upstairs office, and Phil felt his eyes drooping as Dan began reading the list to him.

“Hey, dumb butt,” Dan said as he poked Phil on the cheek with his toe.

“Ow,” Phil yelped. He glared at Dan as he rubbed the sore spot on his cheek. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I’ve been doing yoga from YouTube videos,” Dan said, his eyebrows doing a little dance. “I’m  _ flexible  _ now.”

Phil smiled groggily and glanced at his phone. It was 3 AM. “Are you trying to get me to have sex with you or listen to your list?” he asked.

“Both, eventually. But for now, listen. And then Dan read off the list: “GoldSaucer, PixelShark, SpaceImpact, hyperbeam, DigitalShark.”

“Dan,” Phil said hesitantly once he’d finished. “I’m not sure we’re cool enough for any of those names.”

“What? Of course we are! You’re the coolest.”

Phil snorted and Dan leaned all of his weight forward and onto Phil’s chest so that he could give him a kiss. “What happened to Phil Striker.”

“That’s my alter ego,” Phil murmured between kisses.

Dan stopped and leaned back again, frowning. “Phil, if we aren’t cool enough to have a gaming channel with a weird name, then who is?”

“Jacksepticeye,” Phil supplied. “Markiplier.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “No,” he whined, dragging out the ‘o.’ “ _ Us _ .” Phil gave Dan a level gaze. He didn’t mean for his hesitance to be painted all over his face, but he knew it was because of the early – or late – hour. He didn’t doubt that a gaming channel would be a good step for them, and it certainly made sense considering their natural gaming addiction, but Dan had only brought the idea up to him yesterday, and here they were already trying to pick a name. Dan had even opened the YouTube channel creation page on his laptop, and Phil wasn’t used to Dan working this quickly.

“Come on,” Dan said softly when Phil continued to not speak. “This is something I’ve wanted to do since before we moved to London. I’ve procrastinated on it for the last two years.”

“Then why don’t you do it by yourself?” Phil asked softly. “If that’s what you wanted.” He could tell they were veering into a conversation that it maybe wasn’t smart to have at this hour. “Those names sound more like you than me. Edgy dark humor and all that.”

Dan sighed and leaned back into the sofa. “I…I was more desperate to maintain that I was separate from you then. You know that.”

“And now you’re not?”

Dan shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. I think people have calmed down online a little. At least, as much as they ever will. I’m starting to realize that this is my life now, and it will be for probably a while, so I don’t want to let that make me afraid of doing what I want.”

“Which is?”

It was a silly question, but Dan humored him, reaching has hand out and letting it slide along Phil’s arm. “I want to do things with you.”

Phil felt a smile slowly spread across his tired face. “Okay.”

Dan began to massage Phil’s shoulders, which Phil was not about to refuse. Only, his hands seemed distracted as they worked, and they slowly came to a halt near Phil’s neck. “You’re being so careful in this conversation,” Dan said. “Why?”

Phil shrugged. “This has always been a touchy subject for you. I’m just being careful. Making sure you’re sure. Because it’s always seemed like you didn’t want to share me with your viewers.”

Dan snorted. “I’m not protective of them. I’m protective of you.” Phil smiled widely as he felt Dan press a kiss into his hair. “Idiot,” Dan muttered softly. After a moment of silence that stretched on so long Phil wondered if Dan had fallen asleep, Dan said, “How about we call it TheGame?”

“That’s probably already been used by someone,” Phil said softly.

Dan sighed and wrapped his arms tighter around Phil’s waist. “I guess it should be called DanAndPhilGAMES then?” 

“Have we ever been anything other than Dan and Phil?” Phil asked, and then Dan gave him a kiss so sweet he thought he might melt right into the upholstery of the couch.)

The details flowed from Phil’s mind to the page with ease: their first titles, Dan’s original goal to start the channel in 2012, their decision to do it together. He ignored any nagging thoughts that this was too much honesty, because Dan had maintained that he wanted this book to be more honest, just carefully so. (“We’re developing a specific kind of honesty,” Dan had said, “transparent but also opaque,” and Phil decided to ignore that contradiction.)

It was only when he reached his last point that his mind started to lag. The sentence he had just typed stared back at him:

_ So why a joint gaming channel _ ?

Phil reluctantly typed  _ Because our audience loves videos twice as much if it’s a ‘Dan and Phil’ thing,  _ and then stopped suddenly, staring at their joint moniker.

It was getting to him again. It was getting to him, and he didn’t know the fuck why.

He deleted the sentence and tried typing it again.  _ Because our audience loves videos twice as much if both Dan and  _ – Nope.

_ Because our audience loves videos twice as much if both Dan & –  _ Oh, that was worse, the ampersand made it worse. The linguist in him screamed at the casualness of it all.

_ Because our audience loves videos twice as much if both of us are in them _ . That worked. But Phil knew it was only a temporary plaster over the problem. He leaned back and sighed, rubbing his hands all over his face and eyes.

Phil realized that, other than never outright mentioning their names, there was no way to completely defeat the  _ and  _ or the ampersand. There was no way to even replace it with a comma, because there were only two of them. Commas didn’t work that way: Dan, Phil was not only grammatically incorrect but visually irritating. 

\- - -

Phil found Dan that evening, before dinner. He was sitting in his room – which was now his brothers room – at the old piano. Phil guessed that it used to be his, and his brother must have kept it, or perhaps Dan insisted that he did. Now Dan was sitting at the bench, back hunched over, repeatedly playing the same part of a song over and over again. Phil recognized it again as Ingenue, the song Dan had been playing before they left. Dan kept re-playing the same section, his fingers pressing down on the keys almost furiously, until Phil said, “I think you’ve got that part now.”

He jumped and turned quickly. His face became relieved when he saw it was Phil, which made Phil’s heart rise a bit. “Hi,” Dan said. “How was working on the book?”

“Okay,” Phil said as he moved to sit beside Dan on the bench. There wasn’t really room for the both of them, so Phil pressed his hip up against Dan’s and allowed for half of his left butt cheek to hang off the side. He paused, trying to read the moment and gauge whether this conversation was going to successfully be as normal as it currently felt. “I…I started a new section,” he began.

Dan’s face twisted into an expression Phil couldn’t see. “Without consulting me?” he asked, but his voice was light.

“Yeah. Sorry. But you were busy, so,” Phil trailed off. He wasn’t even exactly sure what that  _ so _ meant.  _ So I didn’t want to interrupt you. So I was feeling neglected and was acting stupid. So I started freaking out over our branding, which is literally just out names tied together with a conjunction _ .

“Sure,” Dan said after he had re-played that same section three more times. “Makes sense. It was probably good you didn’t try to find me. We were at the cemetery for so long trying to pick out a headstone that every part of me started to ache. I was in a bad mood.”

“Oh.”

Phil thought about asking  _ How was the cemetery _ ? But that seemed like a depressing question, even to him. “You’ve been playing a lot again recently,” he said instead. “Why?”

Dan stopped playing then, his hands still poised on the keys, and took a deep breath. “Can’t I just play?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Phil faltered. “I just meant to say that I like it. It’s pretty.”

Dan shook his head. “I can’t get this stupid part right.”

Phil gave up any hope he’d had of them cuddling or chatting in bed later that evening. They hadn’t really talked in a while, like normal, and he missed Dan. But he also felt exhausted from his own emotional turmoil and felt at a loss of what else to do. So he said, “Okay,” and then gently touched Dan’s shoulder before he got up to leave the room.

\- - -

Phil woke up the next morning at 11 AM to find Dan already gone. He immediately felt a cloud of gloom shift over him. He then momentarily hated himself because normally he wouldn’t bat an eye if he woke up to find that Dan had woken up early. He was just feeling a lot of things at once.  _ Don’t overwhelm yourself, Phil _ , he thought to himself as he shut his eyes tightly.  _ But also don’t hate yourself. That’s not productive _ .

After breathing slowly to himself until his head had stopped pounding, Phil re-opened his eyes and picked up his phone.

His head quickly felt heavy again, though, as he had a text from Dan:

_ went with my mum to go test caterers. why the hell is testing caterers a thing btw? not complaining though, because i get to eat lots of food. didn’t want to wake you because you looked so peaceful. i left a list of new section ideas on your laptop. Feel free to write any of them. love you. _

At first Phil felt very happy. The text was very sweet, and full of Dan’s normal complaining humor, and for a moment it made Phil feel like everything was normal. But that happiness quickly turned to anger again, because how was it they were more normal with each other through texts than face to face? But it was something, he supposed.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and stacked Dan’s pillow on top of his own in order to create a makeshift back rest. Then he retrieved his laptop from his bedside table and opened up, trying to settle into the pillows in a way that didn’t make his back hurt. He grimaced, and a pesky little voice in the back of his head told him he was getting old.

If Phil was going to continue to be the good Book Writing and Brand Managing Boyfriend, then he knew he needed to get on top of his emails. Dozens of work emails tended to paralyze Dan, so they had worked out a deal where the publishers and editors contact Phil instead of him, and in exchange Dan takes the reins on the actual book creation. Normally this worked well, but now Phil felt the weight of all of it being on him.

He slowly worked his way through the list of unread emails, quickly handling the easy ones – brands reaching out for a partnership, updates from Martyn on their merch – and starring the more difficult ones for later. But then he ran across one that he knew he’d have to handle immediately, and groaned. It was from their editor, with the subject line  _ Progress update? _

_ Hi Phil, _

_ I wanted to check in on you and Dan’s progress. This is an important month in the lead up to your deadline, so it’s important you don’t fall behind. I’d appreciate an update and am happy to help with any possible roadblocks. Perhaps we could Skype? Let me know. _

_ Best, _

_ Kate _

Phil sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, pushing them under his glasses to his eyes. They hadn’t told their editor about Dan’s grandma’s death, mostly because Phil knew he’d be the one in charge of doing that and he feared them becoming behind. He realized now that they probably should have, as after only four days here it seemed clear that working as hard as they did before would be near impossible. Especially with Dan avoiding him, or whatever it was he was doing. And Phil was unsure how they were supposed to successfully Skype with their editor when they were barely talking to each other and Dan hadn’t touched the draft in days.

Phil slowly got dressed, assuming he had already missed any family morning activities, and lumbered downstairs, letting his feet hit the stairs with the frustration and exhaustion that he felt. When he reached the family room, he was surprised to find Dan’s dad sitting on the couch, his body slumped forward so that all of his weight was on his forearms. He almost looked like he was in pain, and for a moment Phil looked back in the direction of the stairs, wondering if he should disappear.

“Good morning, Phil,” Dan’s dad said, interrupting Phil’s inner debate.

“Oh,” Phil squeaked, jumping back around. He then immediately felt very embarrassed about the high-pitched sound that had come out of his mouth and straightened his back. “Good morning, John. I was just surprised to see you here. I had assumed everyone was gone.”

“Not me,” John said with a melancholy smile. “I haven’t brought it upon myself to do much, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Phil had. “I’m sure that’s normal, sir. Grief and all.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling more now. “Grief. It’s funny, no one’s really said that word in this house yet.”

“Oh,” Phil said. “Do you wish they would?”

He shrugged.

Phil wanted to feel useful, ached for it, and perhaps his anger at Dan was making him braver. “Is there a way I can support you?” Phil asked. He felt as though the words had tumbled out of his mouth suddenly, loud and brash, but Dan’s dad didn’t look surprised by them.

“Your being here is enough. Honestly we’ve already got too many hands on this thing.”

“True,” Phil said. And then, feeling like this was the most honest conversation he’d been a part of in days, he took a risk and sat down on the couch next to him. “I just don’t like sitting around and not being helpful. I’ve done so much book work over the past few days that if I see the word ‘hamster’ one more time today I think my head might explode.” John gave him a look. “I used to breed hamsters,” he continued quickly. “It’s a long story.”

John displayed an expression that looked like a mix between confusion and amusement, and then said, “I really don’t understand Dan’s life at all anymore. I’m realizing that more and more.”

Phil was alarmed by the dryness of that statement, and he opened his mouth to say something when the front door opened, and Dan burst in. He looked a little sweaty and out of breath, immediately walking forward into the living room.

“Hi,” he breathed. “Mum forgot her wallet. Big disaster. Was about to pay for a cake. She told me to come back and find it and return as soon as possible. Where would it be, Dad?”

“Check our room,” he said.

Dan nodded and was about to turn to leave when he noticed Phil. “Oh. Phil. Hi.” He looked between Phil and his dad with a nervous expression that made Phil bristle, as if Phil and his dad having a conversation was the weirdest thing in the world. 

Dan was about to bound up the stairs when Phil said, “I got an email from our editor, Dan. She wants an update on our progress before the big deadline. Wants to skype with us. We should probably do that today or tomorrow.” Dan just nodded in response and then went up the stairs two at a time. Phil sat in silence until Dan returned, a wallet now clutched in his hand, and bounded back out the door.

“If you really want to help, I’d say you could help that guy relax a bit,” Dan’s dad said, pointing towards the spot where Dan had stood. “He’s taking this really hard.”

Phil turned to face him. “You think? He’s seemed extra calm to me. It’s been freaking me out.”

Dan’s dad shrugged. “Different eyes see things differently. We’ve known him at different points in life. Like I was saying, I don’t even think I know Dan at all anymore.”

Phil frowned and thought of his own parents. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true! I don’t mean it in a sad way. It’s what happens. You guys grow up and then you don’t need us anymore. You get your own lives, your own families. I would never try to say I know who Dan is anymore or how he reacts to things. I would’ve never thought this job would allow Dan to make money, and yet,” he paused to grin at Phil, “he’s done great for himself. Both of you have. I can’t deny that.”

Phil didn’t respond. He was staring at his face but not really seeing him, because what he’d said had made his stomach gurgle like a bad pot of chili.  _ Your own lives, your own families _ . That would be Phil. Phil would be Dan’s and Dan’s his. But here he was, at Dan’s  _ family _ ’s house, pushed to the sidelines. He knew he was getting too wrapped up in the semantics of it all, but he couldn’t stop wondering: If Dan’s dad didn’t know Dan anymore and Phil did, then why was he failing to handle this whole trip well?

He pushed through the uncomfortable thought and tried to focus on the issue at hand. “Well, if this was younger Dan and he was acting like this, what would you do?” he asked.

That had maybe been the wrong question, though, because Dan’s dad grimaced. “I was never great at making Dan feel better for this reason. I’d often do the wrong thing. But off the top of my head, I’d say you might try taking him boating.”

\- - -

Phil thought it sounded like a terrible idea. He couldn’t imagine Dan being out in a boat making him particularly happy. Especially in March, when it was a little sunny but still rather overcast. But he was desperate for something to go right, and perhaps a little bit foolish, so he asked Dan’s dad for instructions on how to get to the park and rent a rowboat and planned to ask Dan to go when he got back.

Dan and his mum returned at 4 PM looking flustered. When the walked through the door Dan’s mum had a pile of pamphlets clutched under her armpit – likely containing each caterer’s details – and when she saw Phil she gasped, “Oh, Phil, could you be a dear and take these from me?”

He grabbed them from her and followed her into the kitchen. “How are you doing?” Phil asked tentatively, worried she was about to burst into tears.

“Oh, fine,” she answered. “A little stressed. It’s a sad time.” She gave him a little smile and Phil nodded, saddened but unsure what else he had expected her to say.

“Dan’s sad too?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and he bit his lip. 

He stood there next to Dan’s mum for a few minutes, watching her straighten out the wrinkles in her shirt and then begin cleaning the dishes. He became almost transfixed watching the repetitive motion of her picking up a dish and rubbing it down with a washcloth before he realized that him staring at her wasn’t doing anything helpful. Awoken from his trance, he quickly turned on his heels and went to go find Dan.

But he wasn’t in the living room, so Phil went back to their bedroom. “Hey,” he said when he found Dan standing by their bed, staring into space.

Dan jumped slightly and then said, “Oh, hey.” His voice softened a little, and Phil thought that maybe this was his best chance.

“You don’t look happy,” he said, trying a different approach.

Dan smiled and then said wryly, “You don’t either.”

Phil frowned, wondering if that was true. He walked over and pulled Dan into a hug. He felt Dan’s chin relax into his shoulder. “I’m happy you’re back.”

Dan let Phil rub his back for a few seconds and then said, “So, about our meeting.”

Phil surprised himself by quickly saying, “Let’s not worry about that right now. I want us to do something together, just the two of us. If you have time.” It must have surprised Dan too, because he pulled back and looked at Phil with raised eyebrows. 

This was Phil’s problem: sometimes he felt paralyzed. He felt like he was standing on a tightrope, and he needed to move very slowly and carefully if he wanted to get to the other side without falling and dying. He was Phil Lester, thoughtful and careful and grammatically correct. But sometimes he didn’t know what he was waiting for. He would look down all of a sudden and see that the tightrope was only a few feet off the ground, so if he fell it really wasn’t a big deal. In those moments feelings of frustration and desperation flooded through him and he became Phil Lester, a needy child who needed to act immediately. In those moments he thought,  _ screw grammar _ . It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t sure anyone was hearing what he said anyway.

And as Phil observed the surprised look on Dan’s face he realized he had switched to this reckless, impatient version of himself, one who might say or do anything. Dan looked at him suspiciously and said, “Okay.”

Phil took in a deep breath. “Let’s go boating at the park.”

The smile on Dan’s face fell. “Seriously?” He stepped back from Phil, no longer touching him, and looked up and down as if he was checking to see if Phil had been injured in any way.

“Yes,” Phil said, pushing forward. “Your dad was telling me about how you used to do it all the time when you were little. So I figured we could do it together. You could show me some about what your childhood was like.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “My childhood consisted of me being nervous and sad, Phil. You know this.”

Did he? Phil suddenly felt like he didn’t know much of anything. He stepped forward and placed his hand on Dan’s shoulder, putting on his best cute face. “Please?”

Dan sighed and put his hand on top of Phil’s, removing it from his shoulder but intertwining their fingers. “Fine. But only because you’re a cute idiot.”

Phil smiled as Dan cradled their hands. He was grateful for Dan’s turn to humor, even though he knew it was only because Dan was worried about him. “Hey,” he said. “I’m not just an idiot.” He grabbed both of Dan’s hands and brought them up to either side of his face. “I’m an idiot sandwich,” he crooned, and finally Dan gave him a big real smile.

Dan led him out of his house and down the path that led from his house to the park. Phil followed behind by a distance that allowed him to admire Dan’s outline. He still looked little boyish in many ways, but he had also definitely grown some. His shoulders had started to widen, and while it might not be a difference noticeable to strangers, Phil could identify it. Already, sometimes Phil tried to trace this Dan back to the one who had come to his apartment late at night, scared and begging to drop his law degree while also insisting he couldn’t.

(“You could do it, you know,” Phil had said to that Dan one night.

“Do what?” Dan sniffled. He was lying on the couch, half playing Mario Kart and half crying into the controller. Phil had snuggled him until it seemed its healing powers had faded, and now he was in the kitchen making him a bowl of cereal.

“Actually drop your law degree. You keep talking about it. And I know talking about things can be helpful, but I wonder if you should actually drop it.”

Dan sat up quickly, abandoning his controller on the floor. “You’d support me if I did that? You wouldn’t think that I was a…” He clamped his mouth shut as if he was about to say a terrible word, but Phil realized that he was trying to stop another sob from breaking through. “A  _ failure _ ,” he managed to whisper, although not without a few tears escaping his eyes.

“No. I mean, sure, you could say you’d  _ failed  _ to get a law degree. But that doesn’t make you a failure in, like, life. There’s still a lot of time to do things.”

“This feels like the end of my life,” Dan said, and Phil wasn’t able to stop himself from laughing a little. “Don’t laugh!” Dan yelled, pointing at him. “I know how it sounds. But I am 19, and I feel like I am standing at the end of the road.”

Phil made sure his face was under control and then said softly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. I know that you often feel that way.” He abandoned the cereal bowl he’d been filling with milk and sat down next to Dan, putting his arm around him. “I’m listening.”

“How come you don’t feel that way?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I feel confident that I’m going to grow up and change, whether I like it or not,” he said with a dry laugh. Dan’s facial expression changed at that, and he studied Phil closely. Phil felt self-conscious, wondering if Dan had caught on yet that that was his equivalent of Dan’s existential humor.

“You think I’m gonna change?” Dan said quietly. “You think I won’t be stuck like this forever?”

“Certainly not,” Phil said, and he leaned over to kiss Dan softly on the neck. “But if you want to change, you’re going to have to start by actually doing something.”

“I come here. I complain to you.”

“Something other than just coming here when you’re sad, you oaf,” Phil laughed, throwing a pillow at him.

“Hey!” Dan chucked the pillow back at him, and soon they were in the middle of a full-on pillow fight that involved them smacking each other’s bodies so hard that Phil was sure they were going to get fabric burn. “Okay, okay,” Dan wheezed, now sitting on the floor and completely out of breath.

Phil stopped, gasping for breath as well, and he sat down next to Dan and rested his head on the couch. 

“I’ll make you a deal,” Phil said. “If you think seriously about actually dropping your degree, I’ll give you the bowl of cereal I just made for you. Otherwise, I’m gonna eat it. In front of you.”  

Dan looked at him and smiled. “You little bitch.”)

Phil kept following Dan, and now they were almost to the lake. Dan certainly had grown and changed since then, he thought. And while he was certainly glad that Dan was no longer in the same place, he wasn’t sure he liked where he was now.

Phil was now in a tiny rowboat, using his sadly weak arms to push them towards the center of the lake, with a now grumpy Dan. He had barely spoken the whole walk to the lake, and they had only been out on the water for a few minutes when Dan announced, “Phil, I hate this.”

“Come on, Dan,” Phil said jovially. “Appreciate the  _ nature!  _ Look at the water, the trees! These are a few of my favorite things,” he sang, but his fun was cut off by a murderous look from Dan.

“I hate this. Like, I really hate this.” At this moment, the light breeze turned into a gust of wind that picked up multiple drops of water and blew them into their faces. “Phil, I’m getting  _ wet _ !” Dan shrieked.

Phil sighed, his forced humor turning to darkness fast as impatience and frustration continued to flood through his veins. “Can we just do this, please?”

“What’s  _ this _ ?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know, relax? Hang out? Have  _ fun _ ?”

Dan let out a huge sigh, then tilted his head and asked, “What’s wrong, Phil?”

“Nothing,” Phil said instinctually. Then, against his better judgement he added, “I mean, not nothing. That’s a lie. But you clearly don’t have time for me right now, so I won’t bother you with it.”

Dan stared at him with wide eyes and a blank face, but Phil could tell that beneath that he was angry. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You are being all weird right now, and I don’t understand why. And I am frustrated because you aren’t telling me how you feel about your nana dying. You are Mr. Death and Gloom. You have to have some thoughts or fears?”

“Phil,” Dan sighed.

“At first I thought that maybe you just weren’t sad about it at all, which seemed crazy but plausible. But now we’re here and everyone in your family is saying that you are clearly very sad. But you haven’t told me anything to that effect, so I don’t know what to think. And whatever kind of funk you’re in seems to be getting worse instead of better.”

“Whatever kind of funk  _ I’m  _ in?” Dan asked, but then he closed his eyes and snapped his mouth shut, as if he thought better of going down that particular path. Phil, on the other hand, desperately wanted to explore that exact path, but he didn’t speak and let Dan breath for a few seconds. Then Dan spoke again, much more calmly. “Phil, I just don’t really want to talk about my nana dying.”

“But why?” Phil asked, and for the first time he heard his own sadness cracking through in his voice. “It’s me.”

Dan looked at him as if he’d just said something incredibly painful. “I’ve already told you. Because you will freak out about it. How can I tell you I’m scared of something when you’re so scared of me being scared? Then we’re just tiptoeing around each other, treating each other like glass.”

“Is that why you’ve been excluding me from helping with the funeral? Sending me off to do some random book task whenever your family wants to do an activity?”

Dan didn’t answer Phil, and instead just looked off into the water and sighed. “Phil, I just straightened my hair. I do not want it getting all curly right now. Can we go back?”

Phil felt his own diplomacy break and against his better judgement – this whole thing was against his better judgement, because sometimes Phil didn’t know what he was waiting for – he said, “God, you are so fussy and annoying sometimes.”

“And you are acting petty.”

“Maybe I am, but I feel as though I have good reason to.” Dan looked at him, and Phil couldn’t bear to stop there. “Look, you are right, I am scared from your grandma dying, okay? And I’m scared of death. I’m scared of my skin wrinkling and my getting arthritis in my gaming fingers and of never seeing my family again. I don’t know how to just act like everything is normal after your grandma is gone so suddenly. I know that she wasn’t my grandma, and I know it’s unfair for me to feel that way, but that’s how I feel.”

“Can’t you just accept death?” Dan said, and Phil felt his breath catch for a second, doubting for a second if he’d heard Dan correctly.

“Well, yeah, but….” He trailed off. “It’s not that simple. You know that, Dan.”

Dan looked back out into the water, the anger gone from his face and his eyes now looking equally shiny. “Whatever.”

Phil rowed them back to the shore in silence, and he walked back with Dan trailing behind him. He wasn’t even sure he knew where he was going, but he didn’t want to look at Dan’s back. He tried to take the wrong turn several times, and felt Dan gently tug on his sleeve to pull him the right way. Every time he let himself be led until they were on course again, and then he would break free and walk in front of Dan. He thought he had been frustrated and angry at many points over the past week, but now he felt so angry he almost forgot how to breath.  _ Can’t you just accept death _ ? he’d said, when Dan was the number one fan of an existential crisis.  _ Come on Phil, can’t you just accept it? _

When they reached Dan’s house, they both went right up the stairs, ignoring Dan’s mum as she said, “Hello!” Right as Phil was about to go into the bedroom, hoping and praying that Dan wouldn’t try to follow him and would let him have this space for a moment, he felt him touch his sleeve again.

He turned around and saw that Dan’s face was now rather calm. “We are not communicating well right now,” he said. “Which means we need to go into our separate spaces and take naps or read a book and calm the fuck down. You can have the room right now. I’m going to go work on the book.”

Dan turned around and was walking slowly back down the hallway when Phil said, “I’ve emailed you all the newest drafts.”

Dan answered, “Okay,” and then disappeared down the stairs.

\- - -

An hour later, when Phil opened his eyes after a dissatisfying 45-minute nap, he found that he was actually feeling better.

Sometimes that happened after a fight with Dan. It was like whenever he felt extremely nauseous and at a certain point knew he was going to have to throw up to feel better. It wasn’t the most mature solution, without a doubt. That had been Phil at his most childish, he knew, and after the feeling of relief came a feeling of embarrassment that made him want to bury his head in the sand. Dan had been acting fussy, he thought, but he had also been acting petty.

As he blinked into the sunlight – he glanced at his phone to see that it was still only 4:45PM – he realized that the frustration and anger had subsided, and he was back in reality again. And reality often required him be Phil Lester, thoughtful and careful and grammatically correct. Phil Lester, who needed to make up with his boyfriend. Phil Lester, who needed to schedule a meeting with his boyfriend and his editor.

He was procrastinating, though. He got up and decided he needed to change out of the clothes he had worn to the lake, because they now made him feel heavy and a little embarrassed. He stripped off his shirt and pants and then, instead of immediately fishing through his suitcase for a new outfit, just stood there for a while, looking around the room. He noticed that there were a couple framed photographs sitting on the dresser that he hadn’t looked at before. This could’ve been because he had been too stressed to want to study family photographs, or because neither him or Dan were organized enough to actually unpack and use the dresser on this trip. But he looked at them now, moving closer and getting down on his knees so that they were at eye level.

There was one of Dan’s parents on what Phil assumed was their wedding day. They both looked younger than him and Dan, but then Phil realized that’s because they were. He knew from Dan that his parents had been still in their 20s when they’d had him and gotten married. He thought that maybe Dan’s mum looked a little scared, but maybe that was just him projecting.

The second one was of Dan when he was little. He was dressed in a Where’s Waldo style shirt and khaki shorts, standing in his family’s front yard. Even though Phil could tell this was definitely Dan and not his older brother, he still wasn’t sure that it looked very much like Dan.

The third one was of him and Dan together. At first Phil couldn’t believe he’d never noticed it before and started at it thoughtfully, wondering if it had been placed there since they’d arrived. Maybe Dan’s mum had placed it there in preparation for them coming. That sounded plausible, but still didn’t squash Phil’s amazement that Dan’s mum even had a framed version of this photo. It was of them when they were much younger, both of their long straight fringes pushing into their eyes. They were on a set of cliffs by the sea, with Phil holding his arms out as if to say “Look at all of this!” Phil was fascinated by how Dan looked, wearing capris and a t-shirt with a low bowl neck. He placed his finger on Dan’s face and then dragged it to his own, feeling something shift within him.

This photo was from one of their first vacations together, in Portugal. It must have been from before Dan dropped out. But they were together, and happy, and now this framed version of them was on the same dresser as other photos of Dan’s family. And it had been very difficult for him to think it, had felt wrong of him to think it, but he thought it now: he was a part of this family,  _ Dan’s _ family, too.

The topic of family was sensitive for Phil because he had a very clear idea of what family meant: love and connection and friendship and frequent visits. He was very connected to his own family and so watching Dan be welcomed into it was one of the most wonderful experiences of his life. But while that experience had brought feelings of security – Phil had loved watching the warm reaction of his brother and parents as they decided that Dan was good enough to be  _ family  _ – this whole visit had bred insecurity in Phil. What if Dan’s family didn’t think that Phil was good enough to join them? Or, ever worse, what if  _ Dan  _ didn’t think Phil was good enough? And if they did, then that meant they were being vulnerable with him, sharing their family rituals and secrets, under the guise that their relationship was going to last? And while Phil didn’t have any concerns about him and Dan not being together, he felt the weight of vulnerability and impermanent permanence push down on his chest.

_ Okay, Phil, pull yourself together _ , he thought to himself, shakily standing up from his position on the floor. So he was afraid of death. So was Dan. Why was there such a gap between them, then? Why wasn’t it that Phil  _ and  _ Dan were afraid of death? Why weren’t they afraid together?

Death was so terrifying because it wasn’t a conjunction. What did it mean that there was this divide between them when they were about to make their professional life even more intertwined? What does it mean for their lives to be so intertwined when one life could end so easily, even by a cold?

\- - -

That night, Dan softly knocked on the door before entering. He didn’t wait for Phil to respond, and Phil knew the knock was more a warning than to ask for permission. He slowly opened the door and walked into the room.

“Hey,” Dan said once he’d reached the bed.

“Hi.”

Phil was lying on the bed reading a book, and Dan walked to sit down on his side. “How was your nap?” he asked.

“Too short. Yours?”

“Nonexistent. I worked on the book, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“I liked your section about the gaming channel. It’s smart.”

“Thanks. I thought so too.”

“I can’t believe you’re exposing me by sharing my list of bad name ideas.”

Phil smiled. “They weren’t necessarily bad, just not the best fit for us.”

“It’s hard to breakaway from the power of just ‘Dan and Phil.’”

Phil nodded. “It’s sleek.”

Dan slumped back on the bed and said. “I’m so tired.”

When they were lying together, Phil decided he needed to do something. Without thinking it through too much, he poked Dan in the cheek.

He felt Dan wince, but when he spoke his voice was rather warm. “Phil. This isn’t Facebook in 2010. What are you doing?”

“Do you want to cuddle?”

Dan hesitated and then said, “Okay.”

Phil opened his arms, inviting Dan to be the little spoon, and Dan silently agreed, shifting his body into a curved position. Phil wrapped his arms around Dan’s middle and then said, “I’m sorry about today.”

Dan sighed, although it was less exasperated and more tired. “Phil. I’m tired. My nana’s funeral is in a little over a week. Can we just make it through?”

“I’m really sorry.”

Dan turned around and looked at Phil, their faces incredibly close. Even without his glasses, Phil could make out the softness in Dan’s face now. “I know. I’m sorry too.” Then he turned back around and murmured, “Sleep now. Talk later.”

Despite their fight, and for the first night in a while, they cuddled as they fell asleep.

\- - -

And, despite their fight, they still had to do a Skype call with their editor. Phil woke up to this thought dancing around his head like it was at a rave. It was the first thing he noticed once he became conscious. And then: light streaming in through the blinds, his pillow wedged between his arms instead of under his head, and Dan’s body pressed up against the back of his own.

They had cuddled through the night. It had been a temporary reprieve from their fight, Phil knew. Him and Dan were skilled at that by this point. They knew very well how to put their disagreements on hold to ensure that they got as good a night’s sleep as possible. But when they awoke they often split in two different directions again: Dan was happy to lollygag around the problem, while Phil wanted to hit it head on.

And, in this case, pushing back the Skype call and telling their editor there was something wrong would just make Phil feel worse. So he rolled over, gently detaching Dan’s arms from his body, and shook Dan until he opened his eyes.

“What?” Dan said groggily. “Is there a fire or something?”

“No,” Phil replied. “But it’s morning, and we should try to call Kate before your mum drags you off on another errand.”  _ Without me _ , Phil’s mind bitterly added, but Phil pushed that away, because it wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on all the things they hadn’t talked about yet.

Dan looked extremely unhappy at this news, and he clasped both his hands over his forehead. For a moment Phil worried that he was going to refuse, but then he sighed and said. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. We’d better get it done.”

They got up as quickly as possible considering their mood-hangovers, dressing and brushing teeth in silence.

“Where should we do the meeting?” Phil asked when Dan returned from the bathroom, and Dan gestured for Phil to follow him.

Sometimes Phil was also struck by how much Dan’s family’s home was unknown territory to him. There were memories wallpapered all over Phil’s old family home for Dan, and he was certainly now familiar with both the new home here and vacation home in the U.S. But Phil felt rather confused as Dan led him up a flight of stairs that he had always assumed led to the attic.

“Is there a room up here?” he asked just as they reached the top of the stairs. Dan wordlessly held his hand out as an invitation for Phil to step in front of him as the entirety of the room came into sight. It was certainly an attic, but not one that was all old and dusty and unused. On the right there was a fairly nice desk placed in front of a small window. On the desk was a desktop computer and a mess of papers. On the left was the area clearly dedicated to storage. There were boxes stacked up to the ceiling, as well as unorganized baskets of items.

“I used to come up here a lot when I was a teenager,” Dan said as Phil looked around. “It was kind of like my den. I know it doesn’t look super professional, but there’s a desk, and at least we won’t disturb anyone up here.”

Phil looked at Dan, studying his face. He had large bags under his eyes and his face looked subdued, almost like his muscles had been tranquilized. Phil tried to remember the last time he’d seen him in a happy mood and realized it must have been before they’d learned that his grandma was sick.

(“Phil, Phil, Phil,” Dan had said excitedly to him one afternoon. Phil was sitting in the lounge, and Dan had been off somewhere else in the house. They were both working on the book, or at least were supposed to be.

But Dan ran into the lounge with a wolf mask on his head and a hula skirt tied around his waist.

“What the fuck,” Phil said, sliding further on to the couch as Phil hopped towards him like an over-excited bunny.

“Okay, long story,” Dan said, his voice a bit muffled by the mask. “But I was going through your props chest to help with the brainstorming, and I came across this mask, and I just – how did you  _ never tell me you had this mask _ ?”

“Uh,” Phil said, feeling his face turn a little warm. “It’s old. It’s from a Halloween party when I was still in uni.”

Dan hopped closer to Phil and then clumsily sat back onto his lap. Phil sat up straighter so that he could wrap his hands around Dan’s waist.

“Well, it got me thinking,” Dan continued. “We should write a section about what our patronus would be if we were in Hogwarts. But, like, instead of using that Pottermore quiz we create our own based on Dan and Phil related questions. Ooo, or what animal we would turn into if we became animaguses! Animagi?”

Phil laughed as Dan chattered on and then, because he really couldn’t understand him well, reached up and pulled the mask off his head. Dan’s face was flushed, likely partly from the heat of being in the mask but also because he was clearly excited. Dan was giddy; they were giddy. The whole book writing process up to this point had felt like a honeymoon period, Phil admitted to himself. He was having so much fun that he never wanted it to end, but was also terrified of the inevitable day he would wake up and everything would be different.

“I’m not sure we should go straight into the Harry Potter related content, Dan,” Phil said as he laughed. “Plus, copyright?”

Dan sighed. “I guess you’re right. I just thought it would be fun to make. And, you know, properly stupid.”

“You want to hear my properly stupid idea that I thought of while you were playing dress up?” Phil asked.

Dan narrowed his eyes at him playfully and then said, “Sure, what?”

“A quiz where you can find out which one of our dining room chairs you are.”

Dan spluttered. “ _ What? _ ”

“C’mon!” Phil insisted, holding onto Dan tighter. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Dan moved off Phil’s lap, thinking more seriously now, and then said, “You’re right that it is properly stupid.”

“Very stupid,” Phil said. “Perfectly so. It’s the exact kind of quiz I’d want to take at four in the morning.”

Dan laughed, “I guess so.” Then he slumped back in the couch, clearly a little brainstormed-out.

“I have to ask,” Phil said. “Why the hula skirt?”

“Oh,” Dan said, and then blushed thoroughly red. “I thought you’d think it looked cute on me.”

And Phil had to laugh and poke his cute red cheek. “I do.”)

“Want to brainstorm what we’re going to say to her?” Phil asked, dragging his eyes away from Dan’s drooping mouth, and Dan replied, “Yes.”

They began preparing, quickly shifting to talking in business mode. This was the Dan and Phil somewhere between reality and brand. They were closer to their personas in this moment than their true selves, but still not exactly the Dan and Phil shown in the book. They were never exactly those people, as they were a combination of many different versions of themselves they had been over the years, all baked together into one showstopping Dan and Phil concoction. Phil got caught up on this thought for a moment – the idea of a Dan and Phil themed Great British Bakeoff in which the Showstopper challenged fans to make up their own versions of Dan and Phil’s brand, and how both amazing and horrifying that would be – when he realized Dan was tapping his shoulder.

“You awake, mate?” he was asking.

“Yes, yes,” Phil said quickly as he blinked a couple times.

Dan looked at his worriedly, and it wasn’t until Phil insisted he was awake enough to do the meeting two more times that Dan let it go. They opened up Skype on the desktop and called Kate then, both of them fidgeting slightly under the sacred sound of the Skype call ringing.

Kate answered immediately, and the screen shifted to show her sitting at her desk, a coffee cup in her hand. Phil felt himself immediately animate then, and by the tone of Dan’s voice as he said, “Hello,” he could tell he had to.

And despite their exhaustion and stress and unresolved disagreements the meeting went fine, because they were good at this. The process had become extremely technical now, and they somehow left the meeting with Kate convinced that everything was going great with the book. Which, maybe it was? Phil wasn’t sure he could tell anymore.

He thought about sharing this thought with Dan, but as soon as he had shut down the computer they heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Phil turned to see that it was Dan’s mum.

“Oh, there you boys are,” she said. “I was wondering why you hadn’t come down for breakfast.”

“We had to do a meeting,” Dan said, gesturing at the now black desktop screen.

“It’s great you’re up here, actually. I was going to ask you to sift through some of these boxes today to try to find some old photos of nana,” she said, and Phil could tell from her gaze she was talking to both of them.

Dan frowned. He looked extremely hesitant, but then twisted his mouth into a neutral position and said, “Okay.”

“Great,” Dan’s mum said, clapping her hands together. “That’s a huge help.” She smiled an exasperated sort of smile at both of them and said, “We’re down to the smaller details now.” Then she turned and went back down the stairs, her footsteps echoing until they disappeared altogether.

Phil remained in his seat and stared at Dan, who was also unmoving. He knew this was the moment, and guessed that Dan was asking himself the same question he was:  _ Was there going to be another reason for why Phil should go and do something else? _

“Hey,” Phil said, touching his shoulder gently. “Why don’t we do this together?” Dan continued to stare at the ground, but Phil could feel his shoulder un-tense. “If you’re going to be up here looking for pictures of your grandma, we could also look for more old mementos from your childhood to put in the book. You’d said that’d be one of the good parts of coming here.”

Instead of acknowledging Phil’s point, Dan turned to face him and asked, “You want to talk about what happened yesterday, don’t you?”

Phil took a moment to breathe, making sure his voice would remain steady, and said, “Don’t  _ you _ ?”

“Yes. But, like I said, I also just want to get through  _ this _ .” Dan stressed the word  _ this _ , like it was a determiner for something larger, and suddenly Phil wondered what  _ this  _ was. The funeral? This month? The book? But what about after that? They had a stage show in the works, after all. They had a lot in the works. Phil felt a lump develop in his throat, but he swallowed it down.

“Okay. Well we just told Kate that we had lots of juicy stuff to show her, so let’s try to make sure that’s true,” he said, gesturing at all the boxes.

Dan nodded okay, and they set to work. Phil wasn’t sure where it was best to start, so he followed Dan’s lead. Since the piles of boxes were so high, they needed to start at the top of a pile to avoid knocking one down. Dan reached up as high as he could to grab the second to last box of a pile, carefully bringing down it and the one stacked above it. Phil sat cross-legged next to him on the floor and watched as Dan opened it up. It was full of old kitchen supplies.

Dan laughed. “Well that’s anticlimactic. This looks like a box of stuff that we couldn’t decide whether to throw out or give to charity, and so it’s just been sitting here forever.”

They moved on to the one that had been sitting above it. Dan opened the flaps, and Phil found himself looking at a dusty cloth-bound book. “This looks like it could be a photo album,” he said. “Maybe this is what your mum wanted us to find.”

“Well, there should be dozens of boxes of photos amongst all these,” Dan said, gesturing around them. “But you’re right that we found one of them. Let’s see if it contains any photos of nana.”

They took two large photo albums each and began flipping through them. His contained photos of what appeared to be Dan’s mum and dad at a much younger age. Feeling a suspicion, Phil flipped to the back of the book to see photos of their wedding. “I think this one tracks your parents’ relationship up until their wedding,” he said to Dan.

Dan nodded and turned the book he was holding towards Phil. “This one’s just photos of my brother,” he said, laughing a bit. “I bet there’s not one of these for me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Phil said, hitting Dan on the shoulder. But he felt a little shaky in his insistence, as didn’t know if Dan actually had reason to feel that way.

“I’m serious,” Dan said. “They never took any photos of me growing up. They were too young to think of it, I think. They did it all differently with him, though,” Dan said, pointing at a picture of his infant brother.

“Well, that makes sense, I guess. Them being young and all.”

Dan shrugged and then said, “Yeah. It does make me sad though, I must admit. I mean, I wonder where my existentialist humor comes from sometimes, you know? And then I remember that a whole part of my childhood has disappeared from not being documented.”

Phil frowned. “Not documenting something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Think about the olden times. They didn’t have cameras or computers! If they wanted to remember a moment they had to  _ paint  _ it.”

“Yes, Phil,” Dan said with a little smirk, “because ‘the olden times’ was definitely a specific period in history.”

“Oh, shut up,” Phil said as he rolled his eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time on Instagram.”

Dan didn’t answer him, and instead put both photo albums pack – Phil suspected that the other one might also contain photos of his brother – and then reached up to grab another box from the stack. Dan sat down on the floor, opened it, and then fell back on the floor with laughter.

“What?” Phil asked. “What?” He crawled closer to Dan.

“Oh, this is too much,” Dan said, and as Phil got closer he saw that the look on his face was not exactly happy. Phil looked into the box to see a pile of law textbooks.

“Oh,” he said, laughing a little too now. “Oh, my. I thought you burned all these?”

Dan sat up and shook his head. “No, that was just my teenage anger talking. The truth is I wasn’t brave enough to throw them out. I knew I wasn’t going to go back, but….” He paused and ran his fingers through his hair, which was only haphazardly straightened. “I think in some way throwing them away felt like throwing away my chance at a good future.”

“Huh,” Phil said gently, picking up one of the books and studying the cover. It was simply titled “English Law.”

“I can imagine you as a lawyer. Sometimes,” Phil said.

Dan snorted. “Really? I can’t.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I can imagine a version of life where you forced yourself through the courses, even though you hated it, and became a successful lawyer. Maybe in entertainment and media or something. And you might’ve been miserable, but so are a lot of people,” Phil said with a shrug.

Dan was looking at him, his mouth open a little bit.

“What?” Phil asked.

“You really believe that? That a lot of people are miserable?”

“You don’t?” Phil asked, a little shocked.

Dan looked down at his hands now. Phil thought he looked a little small, like the Dan in the photo on the dresser. “I don’t know.”

Phil opened the last photo album in his box, saw that it was of Dan’s mum’s garden, and then put it away. The stack was much shorter now, and Phil only had to get up on his knees to reach the next box. He set it in front of him and dug in. “Oh, Dan,” he said as soon as he’d opened it. “This is the jackpot for us.”

This box was full of old school papers: art, stories, essays, school reports. Phil could tell that at least a large portion of the stuff was Dan’s because his name was written in the corners in messy all-caps writing.

“Oh, wow,” Dan said, peering in. He lifted up a drawing of what looked like the sun going jogging. “Ok, I must admit that this is cool.” He lifted a huge pile of papers out of the box, setting them next to Phil, and then began rummaging around in the remaining contents. “Look,” he said, waving a collection of papers near Phil’s face. “It’s a dream diary I kept in high school!”

But Phil wasn’t looking at it, because he had begun reading a different packet of paper. It was a short story that Dan had written, and guessing from the typed date in the corner it was also from high school. The story appeared to be about a boy who had magically fallen into the world of Sonic. But Phil wasn’t paying much attention to the plot.

“You don’t use a lot of commas, do you?” he asked.

Dan stared at him blankly. “What?”

“In your writing. You don’t use too many commas.”

“I guess,” Dan said. He seemed to have already dismissed Phil’s randomness and returned to studying his diary. “I prefer dashes.”

“Dashes are better,” Phil said. He wasn’t even sure if he was still talking to Dan at this point, as he mind was retreating away from the current moment and into itself.  “Dashes make you look strong, independent.” _Dashes have power, Dashes avoid the neediness of commas. Dashes don’t necessarily require a word to follow,_ he thought. Dan – Phil could maybe work. But it would make Phil look like an afterthought.

Dan gave him a look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Phil set down the story and took a deep breath. He suddenly felt so tired, and he didn’t even know from what. Writing the book had been hard since the beginning, sure, but they’d pulled no more all-nighters than usual. Yet he now felt so run down, like every word of their past that he wrote out was also erasing a bit of their future. Maybe they just needed to get through  _ this _ . But he was going to burst from the seams, his brain exploding over everything like a shaken-up soda.

“I’ve been re-reading through some of my old linguistics curriculum,” he said slowly. It was only a half-truth, he realized guiltily, but it would have to do.

“Why?”

Phil shrugged. “It’s been helping me think,” he said. “And I’ve been feeling nostalgic.”

Dan also set down his diary and sat back on his heels. He was really frowning at Phil now, looking almost upset. “For linguistics? Why? You get to make and edit videos for a living now, and that’s what you really wanted to do, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but still. Younger Phil chose linguistics for a reason, and I like younger Phil.”

“Right, but you’re not him anymore.”

“I know. But sometimes I like to get in touch with younger Phil,” he said, holding a hand up to his chest. “It helps me gain some perspective.”

“Why do you need perspective right now?”

“I don’t know. This is a huge time in our lives, isn’t it?”

Dan was silent for a while, and then said, “I don’t like how you keep saying younger Phil, like he’s gone.”

“Well, he is, by definition,” Phil said slowly. He was watching the discomfort on Dan’s face closely, and felt himself growing angry. How could Dan not handle the acknowledgment that Phil had grown and changed? “He was 18. I’m 27. That’s almost a decade.”

Dan’s face twisted into a weird expression and then he said, “Yes, we’re truly hurtling towards death.” Phil felt his stomach tighten and his anger grow, because Dan  _ must  _ have known. Dan, looked over at Phil and said, “Sorry. I forgot you can’t joke about it.” 

\- - -

There was now a section in their book now about dreams. Dan’s diary had mostly been a place where he recorded bad dreams: getting stuck in trap doors, standing in a hallway that lead to 30 different rooms, falling down a tunnel. Strangely, more than one had referenced nana. (“Kind of ominous that we’re finding this now, don’t you think?” he asked Phil, and Phil found he didn’t even know what to say in response.)

Dan scanned the whole diary so that they could put it into the book. Phil stayed up late that night and read over them, his eyes tracing over every word:

_ I was in a dark trans station made from black/really dark blue tiles (likes the ministry of magic) _

_ Lots of people are just standing and I can’t see them because it is so dark – I’m with nana holding her hand then in an arc of tiles on the roof over the train tracks the head of a demon comes out of the wall (much like the ancient temple in FFVII) glowing all red like an alarm. It roared and I woke up. _

(Phil had woken up at 4 AM the previous night, his skin sweaty and head pounding. He’d suffered from a string of bad headaches in his early twenties, but they’d mostly subsided by the time he was 25. He hoped they weren’t coming back, and he curled up in a ball and cradled his head.

“Hey,” Dan said softly, touching Phil’s shoulder, and Phil realized that he must have accidentally woken up.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” Phil said, and then he rolled over and placed his forehead against Dan’s chest.  

“I had a bad dream,” Dan murmured. “About nana. About right before she died. She was such a bull-headed woman. I can’t believe a cold is what thwarted her in the end.” But before he could continue, Phil had slipped back into sleep.)

That night, Phil dreamed of all the things that could possibly thwart them: law degrees and linguistics, boats and pianos, commas and ampersands.


	3. Determiners

Things were tense between them, but also not. As the days passed, they continued to talk to each other throughout the day about book things, and they cuddled for at least a short period every night. But there were also times that things slipped through the cracks, and Dan retreated into his brother’s room to play the piano and Phil found himself trying to remember the last time they’d talked about something other than the book. 

They’d agreed to not talk about death, agreed that Dan would bring it up if he needed to, but Phil was finding it more and more difficult to imagine how Dan might even broach the topic now. It had become so large, such a  _ thing  _ hanging over them that Phil had lost all understanding of what it was he was even upset about.

He didn’t have too much time to live inside his head, though, because their deadline was steadily approaching and the funeral was coming together and everything was moving constantly in the Howell household. Four days after they’d searched through the attic, Dan’s brother Alex arrived. 

(“He refused to take a horrifically early train, like we did,” Dan had told him the night before. “He said that nana wouldn’t have wanted him to miss his beauty sleep.” Dan rolled his eyes. “Now, I personally think that might be a bit of an inappropriate thing to say to mum.”

Phil sat up in bed, feeling relieved because he’d been thinking the same thing. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I can imagine him saying that to  _ you _ , sure, but to your mum?”

“As different as we are, I think he’s like me in that regard,” Dan said as he took this opportunity to steal Phil’s pillow and prop it on top of his own.

“Hey,” Phil laughed, falling backwards and trying to make a turtle shell over both of Dan’s pillows. Dan shoved him off, also, laughing, and eventually they both collapsed onto their respective sides. “What do you mean?” Phil continued once he could breathe again.

“We both deal with stuff by making self-deprecating and existentialist jokes to make ourselves feel better.”

“Ah.”

Phil was staring at the ceiling fan now, watching as it moved around and around until it started to spin in the opposite direction, but he could feel Dan looking at him. 

“Phil,” he said softly, “you know it’s okay to tell me if you’re feeling bad about something, right?” 

And just like that, Phil felt himself fill up with anger. Dan had been saying that a lot recently, in lieu of discussing any of his own feelings, and he was tired of the tone of it. He grabbed his pillow and stuffed it under his head. “This isn’t a competition to see who can admit to feeling bad about something first,” he muttered. “It isn’t a standstill. It’s not like if I admit my feelings to you first you win.”

“That’s not what I thought this was,” Dan said quietly, and so Phil didn’t know how to respond.)

It was already mid-afternoon by the time Dan’s brother burst through the front door, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Dan was sitting on the couch, doing a pass-through of the book, and he was the first to look up at him.

“You look like a tool,” he said grimly.

“Hello to you too, loser,” his brother said as he shut the door and dropped his bags by the stairs.

Dan’s mum rushed from the kitchen through the living room to where he was standing and clasped him in a big hug. “Oh, hi, Alex” she said. “I’m so happy to see you.”

“Me too, mum,” he said, his words clipped from lack of air. “Sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” he said once he’d been released. “I can’t believe Dan has gone above and beyond just to make me look like a bad son.”

Dan sighed, “Yeah,  _ that’s  _ why I came to help.”

“Well,” Dan’s mum said cheerily, I’m just getting a midday snack together. I thought we could all sit outside and have a cup of tea?”

“Where’s dad?” Alex asked, walking into the living room now.

“He’s gone to speak with the cemetery this afternoon,” she said quickly, and Dan looked surprised at this. Phil knew from his conversation with John that he was more eager to help than the other’s thought, but he supposed it was surprising he’d managed to convince Dan’s mum to let him do it.

He wanted to ask Dan what he thought about, but then decided against it, as he suddenly wondered if Dan would be okay with knowing that he’d had such a frank conversation with his dad about grief. He was stuck in this thought when Dan’s mum tapped him on the shoulder and began ushering him out towards the patio.

Phil jumped up and followed, realizing that Dan and Alex had already settled down in two chairs and were talking heatedly.

“I can’t believe you could say that,” Dan scoffed, and his cheeks were looking a little pink.

Alex rolled his eyes, “Oh, don’t get so insulted, old man.”

“I am  _ not  _ worse at Mario Kart now just because I’m older,” Dan yelled rather loudly.

“Boys,” Dan’s mum said exasperatedly. “Really? Home 5 minutes and already fighting?”

Dan waited until his mum had gone back instead and then muttered, “I may be getting older, but I could still kick your ass.”

“We’ll see about that. Plus, I hear you’re so busy working nowadays that you might have slacked on the playing.”

Dan scoffed. “You clearly don’t follow me on social media.”

“Yes. Purposefully so. But even if you are playing, that doesn’t mean arthritis isn’t coming for those fingers. You’re almost  _ thirty _ .”

Alex said this with a gasp, as if thirty was socially unacceptable, but when Dan spoke again his voice was louder than it had been before.

“There’s nothing wrong with thirty,” he growled.

Alex frowned. “I know,” he said, and Phil watched as he glanced over at him, understanding dawning in his eyes.”

“Oh, Phil’s almost thirty, isn’t he?”

“Yes. And don’t you put any ideas into his head that he’s dying or that he’ll suddenly contract arthritis.”

Just as Dan had said this his mum returned from the house, carrying a plate of peanut butter stuffed celery sticks and cheese and crackers. Dan sat back quickly, leaving the aggressive posture he’d taken on, and Phil felt shocked by Dan’s reaction. He looked at Alex, who was looking down at his knees now, and felt strongly that he didn’t want him to feel too embarrassed either.

“I don’t think you can contract arthritis,” Phil said to break the tension, hoping his voice didn’t sound shaky. “It’s not a viral disease.”

Dan’s mum groaned and said, “Why on earth are we talking about that?”

Fifteen minutes later, Dan’s mum had poured them all cups of tea and insisted that they start eating the food.

“To family,” she said, lifting he tea cup in the air.

The all followed her lead, lifting their cups into the air, and echoed, “To family.”

\- - -

“You were defensive of me in there,” Phil said to Dan once they were alone again. “You were defensive of my age. Why?”

After dinner, Megan had immediately begun clearing the table and Alex had muttered something about needing to get his room in order. Dan had silently begun helping his mum, and Phil followed his lead. But once they had left the kitchen, he had pounced on the opportunity to ask Dan about his behavior during dinner.

Dan was silent as they walked up a couple of stairs, and then said, “Because I know it’s something you’re wary of.”

Phil scoffed. “Sure. But that’s not the only reason why.” Dan gave him an inquisitive look. “Come on, Dan. I can read your face. You looked like what he’d said had really hit you.”

“It’s nothing,” Dan insisted, now walking into their room and sitting down on the bed. “I just wish that Alex would shut up.”

Phil sat down next to him and hoped that for what he was about to say his voice would be the perfect combination of teasing and serious. “It sounded like you didn’t like to ponder on the idea of me getting older. Becoming thirty. Being old.” He stretched out that last word and leaned his head slightly onto Dan’s shoulder. He was baiting Dan, he knew, but he so desperately just wanted to have an honest conversation with him, and felt he’d finally been given a leg up.

Dan seemed to have read his mind exactly, because he swatted at Phil’s head and said, “Oh, don’t look so smug.” He then slumped backwards onto the bed and put his arms over his eyes. “It’s not exactly that,” he continued. “I just didn’t like the way Alex was teasing you. And, though I know you won’t believe me, I didn’t want  _ you  _ to get all freaked out. And so I tried to stop him.”

Phil sighed, annoyed but also aware that he should’ve known Dan would spin it back on him. “Well, that was very valiant of you,” he said, also slumping backwards onto the bed. They were both lying on their backs now, staring at the ceiling, and Phil studied it. White paint that was chipping a little at the creases. Gold crowning at the corners. As a guest room, the walls and ceiling had clearly purposefully been made nice but had been worn down over the years. Phil wondered what they had looked like when Dan lived here as a child.

“Dan,” Phil said softly, feeling himself grow warier, “let’s cut the bullshit, alright? You didn’t just say that for me. There are things that are  _ bothering you,  _ and that’s  _ fine _ . What is this game we’re playing anyway? A return to non-emotional masculinity?”

Dan glared at him through his fingers. “No, of course not.”

“Okay. Well I don’t believe for one second that you have  _ no _ concerns. And remember when you told me that if you were freaking out about something you’d come to me?”

Dan sat up now so that he was towering over Phil, and Phil thought that he also looked very tired. “That was before we arrived, okay?” he said, his voice cracking a bit. “Before I got all into the planning and seeing mum all distraught and seeing dad all, well, not distraught.”

Phil’s face tightened, and before he could stop himself it was out. “You know, I think he’s much more distraught than you think. But at the same time, you guys shouldn’t punish him for his lack of distraught-ness by locking him the house all day. How do you think that’s helping him?”

Dan gave him a strange look. “How do you know he feels that way?”

“Because he  _ told  _ me,” Phil said, and he hated how he  _ knew  _ that this was going to get a reaction out of Dan, some strange aversion to Phil speaking to Dan’s family that Phil couldn’t understand. “If you ask me, I’d say you’re more afraid of your dad not being distraught than anything else. But there’s no need to treat him like a pariah.”

It took Dan a while to respond, and it looked to Phil like he was struggling with whether to say something about Phil talking with his dad. He opened and closed his mouth twice, and his eyes were locked down in a way Phil hadn’t seen in a while.

(“It’s funny, you have two completely different modes when it comes to how you express your feelings,” Phil had said to Dan once. Dan’s face was swimming on the computer screen before him, coming in and out of focus due to the shit internet at Dan’s house. But even through the fuzz Phil could see Dan blush.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Either your eyes become, like, completely melted. I’m talking like when a recipe asks for softened butter and you accidentally microwave it for too long. Or your eyes become really hard. Like you really don’t want anyone to see into them. Or maybe because you’re not even completely sure what you’re feeling yet?”

Phil stopped talking suddenly, realized he’d gotten caught up in his obsession with Dan’s eyes and worrying he’d come off too strong. He watched Dan’s fuzzy throat swallow.

“Woah,” Dan said quietly. “That’s deep, Phil.”

Phil giggled, relieved. “Sorry.”

Dan took a long time to respond, and then he said, “So I guess my eyes are hard right now? Because I am currently unsure how I feel about you having such access to my emotions.”

Phil smiled gently. “Yeah, they are,” he said, and then Dan smiled back before looking down uncomfortably.

Phil was happy with the outcome of his confession, but knew he needed to redirect the tone of this conversation. “Tell me about my eyes,” he said in a chipper voice, leaning into the camera and bringing his hand up to his chin. “Are they  _ beautiful _ ?”

Dan gave a flirty giggle. “Oh, yes. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, Phil Lester, but your eyes contain a multitude of colors.”)

“I didn’t ask you how my dad is feeling, though,” Dan eventually finished, and Phil rolled his eyes, wondering if Dan was paying as much attention to his as Phil was to Dan’s.

“Right, because why would you want me anywhere near your family?” he snapped, but was immediately taken aback by the confused look that fell onto Dan’s face. Dan stared at him, and his eyes became un-guarded. Phil plowed on, “So you’re just focusing on them so that you don’t have to focus on how you’re feeling, is that right?”

“Maybe I am! And I know it’s not the best coping mechanism. And I don’t plan on doing it forever. This is just an extra crazy time, with the book and everything. I meant it when I said I just wanted to get through this.”

“Well this approach isn’t working for me. Ignoring our feelings isn’t helping me get through this.”

Dan’s eyes hardened again, and his voice took on a joking tone. “Just like how joking about death just makes you feel worse about it, so suddenly I can’t joke around you?”

Phil sighed, “I never said you couldn’t joke. I just asked you to respect how  _ I _ am feeling about this situation.”

The strange look returned to Dan’s face, and Phil felt even more irritated that he wasn’t speaking the feelings behind it. But just when he felt like he might explode again, Dan said, “Fine. We can ask each other one question about how we’re feeling.”

Dan’s voice still sounded sharp and tight, but he lay back down on the bed, scooting all the way up to his pillow and laying his head on it. Phil hesitated for a moment, then said, “Okay,” and followed his lead.

“One that isn’t about death or grief or my nana dying from a stupid cold,” Dan said, but he turned on his side, and Phil followed. The effect of this was that they were curled towards each other, their faces only a few inches away, and the intimacy of it softened the tightness in Dan’s voice.

“Okay,” Phil said slowly, as he was deciding very quickly what he wanted to do. “Then I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

Phil opened his mouth, suddenly feeling very vulnerable, and let in and out another deep breath before saying, “Do you consider me to be your family?”

Dan’s mouth fell open, gravity pulling one corner of it towards Dan’s pillow as he reached forward to touch Phil’s shoulder. “What?” Dan said, and he then seemed to be waiting for Phil to say  _ oh no, I was just joking.  _ But Phil forced himself to hold Dan’s gaze. When Dan spoke again, he sounded similarly vulnerable. “Of course, Phil.”

And though Phil had assumed he’d feel immediate relief at these words, he didn’t. He turned on his back so that he could obscure the wetness that was developing under his eyes. “Really?”

“ _ Yes _ . I…I don’t–” Dan began, and Phil suspected he was going to say something like  _ I can’t even believe you would ask this  _ before deciding that wouldn’t be very helpful. Out of the corner of his eye, Phil saw Dan’s face turn serious as he reached out and lifted Phil into a sitting position. They were now sitting facing each other. “You are my family now,” Dan said. “I mean, you’re the beginning of the family that I create on my own, instead of the one that I came from. You are beginning of the thing that people who meet me now will call my family. You are the person that people look around for when they see me.” When Phil didn’t say anything in response, Dan asked, “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“The whole time we’ve been here, really. But I really felt it when your mum had us do that toast. I felt my whole stomach flip over.”

“Okay,” Dan said slowly, his eyes clenched shut now.

Phil felt the words tumbling out of his mouth now. “Sometimes it feels like you want my life to be yours but you don’t want your life to be mine. Say what you want about being stressed about funerals or whatever, but I haven’t exactly been initiated into the Howells like you’ve been into the Lesters. You keep me separate from family activities. You prevent me being one-on-one with your parents, and when it happens it clearly bothers you,” he shot when Dan made a face of protest. “But then, at the same time, you went and signed the card to your family Dan and Phil. Like, you signed both of our names. Made it from both of us. Dan  _ and  _ Phil,” Phil stressed, tracing the words and ampersand out in the air.

Dan frowned. “Yeah. We’ve been doing that for years.”

“So you do  _ that _ ,” Phil insisted, not letting Dan’s interjection slow him down, “sign the card for both of us, and yet I’m also pushed away from family activities. Like we’re a unit but we’re also not. I mean, we’re writing this whole book about the world we’ve created together, aren’t we?  _ Our _ world. That’s the whole damn point. And yet when I’m here it doesn’t feel like you want me to be a part of this family. I just don’t know what to think about it sometimes.”

Dan took a deep breath, his eyes hardening. And while this could be a sign that he wasn’t going to respond at all, Phil had a feeling that Dan didn’t know quite where to start. “Phil, I’m not as close to my family as you are to yours. I’ve said this a million times.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“It means I’ve got a more tense relationship with my parents than you have with yours. It means that I don’t value your relationship with them that much because it’s not a deal breaker for me. But you would never be able to be with someone who doesn’t get along with your family.”

“But I  _ do  _ get along with your family!” Phil protested.

“I know you do,” Dan said. “It just doesn’t matter to me as much. I don’t feel like you have to be a  _ Howell  _ to be a part of  _ my  _ family. Us creating a new family is just as good. I mean, no matter which way we do it it’s  _ family _ . It’s all one and the same.”

_One and the same_ , Phil thought, turning the words over and over again in his head like a hula hoop. He certainly didn’t feel that way. Family existed as something specific, a clear definition with clear lines that traced out the place that each person in the family should fill. When you had a family it all fell into line: mother, father, siblings, pets, _you_. And while he was aware that was maybe a privileged and old fashioned view, he didn’t know how to shake it. When Phil found a rule, a role, a definition, he wanted to follow it. Even if that meant he had to create his own rules. He still wanted that structure, that definitive nature of how life would unfold. _One and the same_ was a category full of far too much unknown variety for his taste.

“But why do you care about what happens here?” Dan continued, interrupting his thought spiral. “Like you said, we’ve made our own family, Phil. Our own place. Our own world. I mean, you’re right – that’s what the whole book is about, really. Like,” he began, laughing a little nervously now, “we talk about being careful and keeping our private life private. And we certainly do. But this book is mirroring us, Phil. Sure, the people on those pages are caricatures of us. But we’re still, uh, kind of celebrating us. It’s self-indulgent to the fucking max,” he said, grinning hugely now. Then his face turned serious again. “And about my issues with you spending time with my family, I mean, I’d really hoped you knew this by now. I’m not protective of them. I’m protective of you.”

The words rang familiar in Phil’s mind.  _ I’m not protective of them. I’m protective of you _ , Dan had said once as they were lying in their office, trying to think of a name for their possible gaming channel. It had been only a few years ago, and suddenly Phil felt so embarrassed that he had this same insecurity years later. He placed his hands over his face and groaned.

Dan took no notice to his embarrassment, though, and kept on talking. “But I certainly didn’t mean to make you feel so separate, Phil. I don’t want to exclude you. So I’m sorry for that. And, if it means that much to you, I can make sure you feel more like a Howell.” Dan grinned at him when he said  _ Howell _ , brandishing it out of his mouth like a sword that was marking Phil as a knight.

As comforting as Dan’s words were, and as happy as Phil was to hear them, he found himself unable to get any coherent response out. He had felt so energetic when getting them out, like a sugar high, and now he had crashed, his mind growing fuzzy with sleep. And now that those words were out he was grappling with something else swirling in the pit of his stomach.

In lieu of verbal acknowledgment, Phil nudged himself onto Dan’s chest and burrowed his head into the crook of Dan’s neck. Dan gently wrapped his arms around Phil and began peppering the space between his ear and cheek bones with kisses. Then he suddenly grabbed Phil tighter and said, “Wait, Phil… _ you’re  _ not feeling freaked out about something, are you?” Phil could feel Dan’s grin against his neck. He meant it as a joke, Phil knew, a kind jab at what had just tumbled out of him, but Phil’s stomach lurched with the knowledge that his outburst had barely scratched the surface. He didn’t reply.

\- - -

“I never got to ask my one question,” Dan whispered into the darkness.

Phil rolled over, half still in his dream, feeling confused. He hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep. “What?”

“My one question that wasn’t about nana or death. I never got to ask it. But I have one.”

“Okay,” Phil said groggily. He rolled over and checked the time on his phone. It was half past four in the morning. “What?”

Dan scooted closer to Phil, took a deep breath, and then whispered, “Do you regret us taking the book deal?”

Phil felt a rush of confusion that he realized must have been similar to how Dan felt after his own question. “Where’s this coming from? When we accepted it last Christmas you were so happy–”

“Yes,  _ I  _ was so happy,” interjected Dan. “Were you? You haven’t answered the question.”

“Yeah, I was,” Phil whispered back. Despite the exhaustion still heavy on his lids he felt his brain waking up. “I felt…. Proud. I felt like I wanted everyone to know even though we couldn’t tell anyone yet. I felt so in awe of everything.”

“It was Christmas. Everything was magical and shiny and yummy.”

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, because he still remembered it so well, even now. And though he was happy the book was actually happening now, he did sort of miss that honeymoon period in which they were excited about the project but hadn’t had to do any work yet.

“It was such a risk, though,” Dan said, echoes of stress returning to his voice. “When you were talking to my dad you explained how it was a business decision, and you sounded so sure and confident. And you’re right, it was a business decision, but sometimes I hate how we never told him about the other risks. Like, that no one else knows about all the balls we’ve had to juggle.”

Phil’s confusion deepened. Each additional thing Dan had said had changed the direction Phil though this was going, and now they had landed in a place of double discomfort. A coming out of sorts combined with Dan’s parents. They were fully out to them in Dan’s mind, Phil knew, but they also lived in a sort of in-between zone that didn’t have clear lines. And, of course, Phil had always hated that. “What would you have wanted me to tell him?” he asked.

“I don’t know. That by taking a book deal together we were branding ourselves together, which has implications beyond our career. I guess I was more wondering if you regret that.”

“No,” Phil said quickly. “I knew what we were getting in to. I never cared about that as much as you.” They were lying close enough that Phil could nudge Dan with his shoulder, and he hoped the gesture would make his statement seem casual enough. Still, he watched as Dan grimaced in response.

They both breathed into the silence, and Phil braced himself for Dan to say something about the resistance and fear of his younger self, but instead Dan groaned, “I’d wanted to rebrand myself.”

“What?”

“I wanted to change my dumbass username. Danisnotonfire,” he said in a high-pitched mocking tone. “But now I’m surely gonna be stuck with it for a few more years. Through the tour, at least.” He shot a little look at Phil, as if he wanted to confirm that they were still doing the tour.

“It’s true, you will,” Phil said calmly. “But it’s not that terrible, is it? I mean, as a brand it’s pretty true to your character. Your nickname is Danny and you  _ are  _ covered in snot–”

Phil wasn’t able to finish his sentence because Dan tickled him on his side and he burst into a fit of giggles.

“You’re right, I guess it could be worse,” Dan said as Phil felt himself becoming farther and farther away from the conversation. “Our brands, I mean. They’re a bit young at this point, sure, but they aren’t too far from who we really are at times. I mean, I really am an emotional wreck and you’re like a blooming sunflower.” Dan squeezed him hard and whispered, “Thank you. I love you. Sleep again.” 

But now Phil was wide awake.  

\- - -

Dan just wanted to get through  _ this.  _ And, Phil wondered as he stared into the darkness while Dan snored beside him, what was  _ this _ ?

The word  _ this  _ was a determiner, a kind of word that matches up with a noun to help show the occurrence of that noun in different contexts. Determiners were often articles, pronouns, numbers, referring to people, places, and things. They often weren’t as wholly flexible and uncertain as  _ this  _ was.

_ This  _ was: their relationship, their friendship, their whole lives, their careers, their YouTube channels, their families, their branding, their fame, the rules that made Phil feel like he couldn’t infringe upon the qualities that Dan had claimed long ago. It was all connected, Phil’s panic at Dan’s lack of panic and Phil’s difficulty to share his own.

Dan just wanted to get through this, but Dan was supposed to be the one lying on the floor in fear, and instead it was Phil. The irony of that was not lost on him.

\- - -

Though the funeral was in two days, Dan woke up the next morning in a surprisingly good mood.

“Good morning,” he said to Phil when Phil’s eyes were still shut, and he groaned.

“What time is it?”

“Morning time.”

“Then it’s too early,” Phil said, swatting Dan away.

He swore he could  _ feel  _ Dan roll his eyes and then say, “It’s actually half past eleven. So, almost not morning.”

Phil groaned. He’d been up practically until dawn, victim to the catastrophizing thoughts swirling around in his head, so any time before noon did not make him happy. But he was not going to tell Dan this. 

“I need motivation to get up,” he whined, pulling Dan back onto him now.

Dan giggled and positioned himself between Phil’s legs. “Okay,” he said, leaning forward to peck Phil on the lips. “I have a proposition for you then.” And just as Phil was about to pull him in for another kiss, Dan poked him in the side, hard, and purred, “Want to have a  _ family  _ day?”

Phil froze and then reanimated quickly, understanding that Dan was making fun of him in a way that was also meant to acknowledge his requests from the night before. He shot back, “Am I invited?”

Dan laughed loudly, and Phil felt himself swell with pride. He grinned to himself, even as Dan rolled off and shoved his pillow onto Phil’s face.

They went downstairs to a leftover breakfast spread in the family room and Dan’s mum sitting at the kitchen counter pouring over a newspaper. “Good morning, mum,” Dan said as she went over and kissed her on the cheek.

“Morning, Dan,” she said absentmindedly without looking up from the paper.

Phil suddenly felt very self-aware and awkward, but then he walked over and placed his hand on her shoulder. She jumped, clearly not expecting another hand to be there, which caused Phil to jump and squeak loudly.

“Oh no,” he breathed as he collapsed onto the nearest seat, his hand over his head. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…Mrs. Howell.”

Megan looked at him for a moment as if his appearance completely baffled her, and then she burst into laughter. “Oh, Phil. Oh, it’s so fine. I’m sorry that I am so jumpy right now. I haven’t been sleeping well.” She sighed and gently hit her head with the bit of newspaper that she had crumpled in her panic. Then she looked at Phil and said, “Also, you can call me Megan. Have I never told you that before?”

Phil smiled nervously. “No.”

“And so you’ve just been working hard to never address me by a name this whole visit, haven’t you.”

“Yes…Megan.”

Megan laughed again and then said, “Oh, Dan was right about how overly polite you are. I mean, he always told me, but I guess I’ve never spent enough time around you to experience it before.”’ She frowned a little then, and Phil saw out of the corner of his eye that Dan was looking at his feet. “Do you boys want some lunch,” she asked.

“Sure, but,” Phil said, looking around, “where is everyone else?”

Megan turned on the tap to wash her hands and she shouted over the water, “Alex is still asleep, and John is awake reading in our room. I don’t think we should disturb him.”

Phil gave Dan a look, and Dan shook his head a little as if to say,  _ not right now _ . “Why is that lazy boy still asleep?” he said to his mum.

Megan rolled her eyes. “It’s not even noon, Dan. I’m shocked  _ you’re  _ awake.”

“Well, I’m going to go wake him up.” Dan grabbed Phil’s hand and pulled him out of the kitchen, all the while Phil could hear Megan laughing to herself.

“Why are we doing this?” Phil asked as they approached Alex’s room.

“Because this is what I used to do all the time when we still both lived in the house. So, I want to do it now,” he said, giving Phil a meaningful look. “Just like old times.”

This was an old tradition made new, but with Phil in it this time. He mimicked Dan’s mischievous crouch and said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

And then Dan catapulted through the door and body-dived onto Alex. Alex shrieked. “Agh! What the fuck?”

Dan was laughing maniacally.

“You  _ ass _ ,” Alex yelled, and then he lunged at Dan and chased him out of the room. He paused for a moment at Phil’s side, poked him in the chest, and said, “Don’t stand there looking so mature and innocent. I know you played a part in this.” And then he ran down the stairs after Dan, yelling all the way. Phil felt himself smile.

He walked slowly down the stairs, following them and listening to the fight play out in front of their parents. 

“Boys,” Megan sighed, and Phil was impressed with how her voice remained at a normal volume.

“They are ridiculous, aren’t they?” John said. Phil jumped, as he hadn’t heard John come down the stairs behind him. 

“Oh, yes,” Phil answered. “Completely ridiculous.”

John rolled his eyes and then said more loudly, “You boys are like magnets that make each other stronger instead of repel. Neither of you are like me at all,” he added. “But you could be each other’s twin.”

“What? Dan and I couldn’t be more different,” Alex protested, temporarily stopping his attempts to punch Dan in the stomach.

“Oh really?” Dan asked, his eyes raised as if to question what qualities Alex dared to mention.

Alex smiled back and said, “I am much better at video games then him.”

Dan had begun to throw pillows at Alex’s head when his mother entered the room. “Hey,” she snapped. “Cut it out.”

“Mum, I’ve got a proposition for you,” he said, mimicking his phrasing to Phil earlier that morning.

“What?”

“I think that instead of continuing to prep for the funeral today, we should have fun.”

Megan thought about it for a second, and then said, “Okay. Well, I guess that couldn’t hurt. I could take all you boys out so you could get out some of your energy.” Then she stopped to mutter to herself, “I feel like I’m talking about dogs.” Speaking again at normal volume, she continued, “And that could give dad some time to have the house to himself.”

“Actually,” Dan cut in. “I think we should take dad with us. I think we’ve been keeping him too cooped up.”

His mum blinked several times. “Do you?”

“C’mon, mum. Lets at least ask dad what he wants.”

Megan pursed her lips as if she disliked giving up control of who went where in this way, and Phil felt pang of sympathy for her. But he was also relieved when she turned to John and asked. “Well, John, the funeral is almost completely ready. There isn’t a ton left to prepare. So what would you like to do today?”

John looked at Phil, as if he knew this had originally come from him, and said with a smile, “My mother’s death has caused me to feel rather nostalgic. Why don’t we go boating at the park?”

Alex’s mouth dropped open. “ _ Boating _ ?” he shrieked, and suddenly Phil thought that the two Howell brothers really weren’t too different.

\- - -

They all walked from the house to the park – Dan, Phil, Megan, John, and Alex – and Phil felt a little like he was in a dream. After over a week of wishing to feel more included, wishing to feel at home here, he finally did. And yet it was rather overwhelming, because he felt confused about how or why the change had happened. Because him and Dan had talked, and Dan had woken up the cheeriest he’d been in over a week, and now it seemed to Phil like  _ everyone  _ was acting different around him. More friendly, more present, more engaged, as if Phil had suddenly gone from 75% opacity to 100%.

He walked alongside the rest of them in silent shock as they chattered, and eventually Dan noticed.

“Hey,” he said, poking Phil in the side with his elbow. “How are you doing?”

Phil gave him a smile. “Fine. This is fun.”

“Yeah. It should be,” Dan said, but he didn’t look convinced. “Why do you still look nauseous then? We’re not on the boat yet, after all.” When Phil didn’t smile back at his joke, Dan frowned. “I’m fine, Phil. You know that right?”

This reminder jolted Phil, making him feel relieved and, strangely, angry. Unlike Dan’s many previous insistences that he was fine, this one felt genuine. Dan’s eyes were clear as he looked into Phil’s, and as much as Phil knew he would have given anything for this days ago, he now felt suspicious.  _ Why  _ was Dan suddenly fine? Nothing had changed about their situation. His grandma was still dead. And so, why feel better? And lurking behind the suspicious, the surprising burst of anger inside him screamed. Why was Dan reminding Phil that he was fine, as if that was the only thing Phil ever thought about?

“Yeah, I know that,” Phil responded.

As if Dan could read his mind, he said, “Nana dying has been terribly sad, of course. And that won’t just go away or anything. But I’ve still got all of these guys.” He gestured around at his family, and then pointed at Phil. “And you.” He placed his hand on Phil’s shoulder in a gesture that from afar might look like a clap on the back but felt to Phil like a loving caress. “You’re most important of the people here to me.”

Phil felt his stomach give a terrible lurch, and he felt a sudden urge to pull Dan into the shade of one of the nearby trees and just cry into his shoulders. He hadn’t cried once during this whole trip. He hadn’t let himself.

“We don’t have to talk about this right now, Dan,” he said in what he hoped was a light voice. “Let’s just focus on enjoying boating. Which for you means focusing on getting a personality change.”

Dan looked concerned for a moment, but then his face twisted into a smirk. “Oh, ha ha.”

“Are we making fun of Dan?” Alex butted in. “My favorite past time.”

“Yes, we are,” said Phil quickly. “Hey, Alex, remember when Dan died his hair purple?”

Alex burst out laughing. “Oh, yeah. You thought you were so cool.”

Dan blushed and self consciously touched his hair. “I think we all know I’ve made a series of terrible hair decisions in my life. Speaking of which, I freshly straightened it this morning, and now it’s gonna get all curly and moist when we get in the water.”

“I think it looks cute that way,” said Phil softly, and Dan smiled as Alex gagged.

“Ew! No. Dan does not look cute. Not at all.” Alex slinked away from the conversation after that, moving to trail behind his parents, and Phil watched Dan as he chewed on his lip and messed with his fringe.

“You know, if you wanted to stop straightening it, I’d support that,” Phil said.

Dan didn’t look at him and kept fiddling with his hair. “I don’t know,” he said softly, and then finally looked up to give Phil a sheepish smile. “Our hair styles are kind of built into our brands, aren’t they? I mean, we even have those drawings of our hairstyles over the years in the book. So I don’t think I can just go and change it.”

Phil pondered this for a moment, because it was close to the thing he’d been wrestling with since the moment they’d received Dan’s mum’s phone call. “Well, we’re writing the book to remember the things we’ve done, not to lock us into always having to do them.”

“Yeah,” Dan sighed, “but I reckon it’s got to at least representing us at least for a while after it’s published.”

“I guess. But change isn’t just going to stop happening, is it?” 

Dan didn’t respond. They had now reached the lake, and he stepped forward to help his parents rent the boat and get it ready. (“I think we need to get two boats,” he said when he realized his parents had just asked for one. “Are you sure?” Megan countered. “Am I  _ sure _ ?” he squealed. “One boat is meant for four people. I know Phil and I are attached at the hip, but do you really think we’re small enough to count as one person?”) 

It wasn’t until Phil had actually said the sentence out loud that it had sunk in. Change wouldn’t stop, nor time, nor  _ colds _ .

After they all had put on their life jackets and pulled the boat to the side of the dock, they began to get in. Phil stepped onto the boat with Dan and Alex, praying he wouldn’t trip and fall into the water. Dan seemed to have the same thought, because he reached up suddenly and grabbed Phil’s hand, ushering him on.

Once both boats were filled, they kicked off from the dock and slowly rowed towards the middle of the lake. While Phil’s parents were serenely rowing in tandem, Dan, Phil, and Alex were all a little squished in their boat, and Phil ended up curled up in very back, his knees up to his chest, while the other two fought over the correct way to row.

“Down and up and down and up,” Alex was murmuring. “Stay in beat, Dan.”

“I know,” Dan replied gruffly. “I do have a sense of rhythm you know. I can play an instrument.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard you playing the piano whenever you have a chance. Sounds like it isn’t going too well.” From the slack look on Alex’s face it was clear he had meant this remark casually, but Dan’s back immediately straightened, and his grip tightened.

“Wow, you’ve been mean ever since you’ve gotten here,” he muttered, and Alex’s face transformed into confusion. 

“I think it sounds good, Dan,” Phil jumped in. “I can tell you’re really working to get every part of the song down. 

Dan didn’t address Phil, and instead continued to mutter, “I really wish I could plug headphones into that piano. I’d rather people didn’t listen.”

“Why?” Phil asked, but Dan just shrugged.

“I didn’t mean what I said, Dan,” Alex said softly. “I’m sorry.” He seemed very aware that John and Megan were both listening to this conversation, as Phil could see out of the corner of his eye that they were closely sticking to their side.

“I know I suck,” Dan muttered. “It’s fine.”

“No, you don’t–”

“I said I  _ know and it’s fine _ ,” Dan interjected, cutting Phil off with a glare.

Phil kept his gaze steady, trying to communicate him the message  _ how about we talk about this when we get back _ ? But when Dan realized this he looked away.

At this moment, Megan intervened in the conversation, reaching her hand out to grab the side of their boat and pulling it right against hers. “Alright, everyone. Here we are.” She looked around and then at John as if to say,  _ this is our chance at a family moment, help me make it happen.  _ She then cleared her throat and said, “I know everything I am about to say will also be said at the funeral, but I want to say that this is certainly a sad and stressful circumstance for us to come together under, but I am nonetheless glad for this time. And,” she added, “glad that Phil could join us for a longer visit.”

Phil froze, feeling all eyes turn on him, and wondered how his face looked. His brain was taking over all of his mental capacities, though, as he flashed back to the moment he had told Dan he’d be coming with him. It hadn’t even been a deliberation for him. As soon as Dan said he’d be going home for that time Phil knew he’d be by his side, because even though they were sometimes apart for family vacations this felt more like a life-shifting moment that Phil needed to be there for. Because Phil was a fixture in Dan’s life. Or, Dan was a fixture in his. 

Guilt washed through him as he wondered if it’d really been his own insecurities that had pushed him to come with Dan. Had he been so concerned that he wasn’t really a part of Dan’s family that he’d happily lapped up Dan’s grief as if it was a glass of ribena? Had he even considered what this time really meant to Dan and his family?

But Dan hadn’t protested at all, of course. He’d seemed happy that Phil was coming, albeit nervous, and Dan’s words came back to him again:  _ I’m not protective of them. I’m protective of you. _

Phil loved his life with Dan, was so protective of it, but he also held onto the memories of his childhood for dear life. Because his family growing up had been perfect in his mind. It had been the ideal family, everything he’d ever wanted. Phil had always known that Dan’s family had come up short for him, and this was why he used to be convinced their relationship was bad. He realized now how foolish that was, him once again being privileged and shortsighted. He wondered now why Dan never called him out on it, how he could stand it. He couldn’t see family as package deal that Dan saw it as, couldn’t see it as a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces could be cut to fit together, because he was so determined for it to always be one way.

He smiled guiltily at Megan, and forced himself to say, “I am sorry I haven’t been here more often. I hope it hasn’t come across as avoidance.”

Megan looked very surprised at that. “Oh, not at all, my dear. Life is very busy for all of us, but especially for you and Dan right now. We know that.” Her eyes softened, and she glanced at Dan now. “We’re proud.”

Alex gagged from his seat in front of Dan, but this did not cause Megan to flinch as Phil did. She merely smiled wider and said, “We’re proud of you too, Alex, of course. After all, it’s a big accomplishment to spend more time playing video games that Dan has.”

Alex cackled loudly into the crisp blue air, and Phil saw Dan grin. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his speedily beating heart.

“Returning to my soppy speech,” Megan said with a bit of an embarrassed laugh. “I would really love it if I could hear from each of you kids something you’re thankful for from this week. To look beyond the planning and the work and find something good.” Phil thought her eyes looked a little glassy now, and he hoped she wouldn’t cry as he then surely would. “Alex?” she asked. “Do you mind going first?”

Alex groaned, but Phil suspected it was more for show than out of honest annoyance. Then he sat and thought for a moment. “I’m thankful for down time,” he said finally. “I actually don’t have much time to mess around while at school.” He was blushing now, as if this admission was going to cause him to be teased relentlessly.

Dan took the bait. “What?” he gasped. “Alex, are you…. Are you a  _ hard worker _ ?”

“Secretly, yes I am,” Alex said, his head hanging by his chest. “But I’ve got appearances to keep up here at home,” he said, giving Dan a shrug.

Dan seemed dazed by this news for a moment, perhaps thinking that in the years that his communication with his little brother had lessened he’d grown into a different person. Then he said, “I’m thankful for perspective.” Phil waited, thinking he might elaborate on this, but he simply stared, closed mouthed, into space.

Eventually Megan’s eyes shifted from Dan to Phil. “Oh,” Phil said in a high gasp. “Um. I’m thankful for feelings and words.” As soon as Phil had spoken, he knew he’d accidentally launched himself into a rambling hole. This was confirmed by the confused faces all of the Howells gave him, their eyes boring into his skull and giving him no chance at escaping. His treacherous tongue answered them. “I mean, I, uh. Obviously, as Dan’s mum, I mean Mrs. Howell – Megan,” he corrected finally. “As Megan said, this has been a terrible time to all come together. But it’s brought out a lot of feelings, which I think might be good. And, I mean, there’s been a lot of time to express and ponder and, um, write them. I’ve been thinking about this a lot just because Dan and I are writing this book and I’ve been trying to think about, um, what this means to me – us – and our lives.”

He looked at Dan then, the drum beat in his head slowing as he remembered what he’d said last night. “It wasn’t just a business decision, the book,” he continued. “It’s basically a negotiation tool for how much of us Dan and I are going to share with the world. Like you said, Alex – you’ve got to keep up appearances here as a cool game boy, but you work hard at school. Maybe you even love math, I don’t know. But that doesn’t fit with the whole picture of you, because nobody’s pieces ever all fit together. But ours have got to all fit together. Anyways, your nana’s death has really made me think about that.”

No one spoke for a painful moment, and then Megan said, “Well, that was very nice. Thank you for cooperating, boys. And thank you Dan for encouraging me to give John some air.”

Phil knew that John was going to interject before he even opened his mouth, and he suddenly didn’t want it, suddenly didn’t want any more attention or affection or love directed at him. He felt he might explode as John said, “Let’s give credit where credit’s due, Megan. This was Phil’s idea.”

Phil blushed scarlet as Megan turned to look at him. “What? Really?”

“Yes,” John continued, both of them now staring at Phil. While Megan looked a little confused, the twinkle in John’s eyes felt meaningful. “I think he understood how I was feeling.”

Megan made a face that Phil couldn’t quite identify, halfway between happiness and frustration. “Is that so? That’s a difficult thing to do.”

“I admit that’s true. But Phil’s a man with a lot of emotional depth, and I have a feeling that he’s been there for all of us since nana died. So I want to say thank you.”

“Oh no, please,” begged Phil as he suddenly found his voice. “You make me sound so noble. I wasn’t really trying to be there for everyone, I swear. I was just…around. Working on the book. Or not really knowing what I was doing. I was being selfish, really, just trying to figure myself out, figure out my own feelings.”

Once Phil had spoken, he became very aware of the look Dan was giving him. It had been unchanging ever since Phil’s accidental monologue. It bored into him: deep, curious, and maybe a little upset. He shifted his eyes past Dan’s head, trying to escape it, but landed on Alex’s similarly curious expression.

“Did you ever meet nana?” Alex asked. His tone was purely curious and in no way accusatory, but Phil flinched nonetheless.

“No,” he said, knowing he’d backed himself into this corner. “But I…have really felt her death. I’ve felt a lot of thing since we found out she had a–” he flinched without meaning too, hearing the words before he had to say them, “– a cold. I’m sorry if that sounds disrespectful,” Phil said to Dan’s mum.

“Not at all, my dear,” she said with a smile, and he stared into her eyes, unable to believe the kindness there. “But if you were also feeling some sort of grief, you should have let us know. This wasn’t–” She broke off suddenly and sighed. “Despite the way I’ve constantly shuffled you all around over the past week, I haven’t been trying to prevent any feelings from coming out.”

But Phil had been. A lump sprang into his throat, large and unforgiving.

Megan looked around at all of them now, turning her chest to face them directly. “As I said, this is a very sad thing. I threw myself into planning the funeral to avoid dwelling on it, but I fear now that I roped you all into my coping mechanism. You’re all allowed to mourn in your own way of course. And that includes being sad or not being sad.” She let out a little laugh then, sad and shaky, and it made Phil jump. “I’ve babied you horribly this week, John,” she said to her husband. “I’ve kept you prisoner. I’m sorry.”

John smiled at her, his hand rubbing over her shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re making it through this. That’s what matters most. And nana would have loved this little bit of family bonding time out here.” He gestured around them, re-orienting all of their attentions to the fact they were floating aimlessly in the middle of a lake in two rowboats.

“Are you joking?” Alex laughed. “Nana  _ hated  _ being out here. She thought there were too many bugs. If she were here, she’d be sitting just like Dan, legs pressed together, hands pulling her collar up to her chin, looking down at the water with great disdain.” Alex changed his voice at the end to mimic that of haughty old lady, and John laughed.

“You’re right, Alex, she would. She’d have spent this entire conversation correcting all of our grammar. But let me at least remember her how I’d like to, alright?”

Alex said something in response, but Phil didn’t listen. Alex’s mention of Dan had reminded him of his existence, stiff and shocked and maybe a little upset, in front of him. He couldn’t bear to look at Dan again. He thought about doing it, began to do it, and then, to his horror, tears sprang into his eyes.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, turning behind him and thinking wildly about how he could escape this situation. To his relief, he saw that once they’d stopped rowing their boats had begin to drift back towards the docks, gently pushed by the wind, and they were actually only an arm’s length away. Phil realized that his outburst had brought everyone’s attention back to him, and he made sure to look towards none of them as he reached to the edge of the dock and pulled the side of his, Dan’s, and Alex’s boat all the way up against it.

“I think I’m going to go take a walk,” he said as he shakily stepped back onto the dock, almost tripping on a nail head. “You guys keep going, though.”

He heard voices after him. Someone, maybe Megan, was protesting, but he kept moving forwards. He allowed himself one glance at Dan’s shocked face before he turned around and walked away at the fastest pace that wasn’t a run.

\- - -

Phil wasn’t even sure he knew the way back to Dan’s house. The last time he’d come back from the park he’d blindly followed Dan, and his sense of direction was less than optimal. But despite his legs feeling weak and his certainty that he looked like a drunk and stumbling deer, he followed his instinct past street corners and suburban homes until he finally came across the right one.

He ran up to the front door and then stopped, closing his eyes and praying that they had left the front door unlocked, even though he knew that was unlikely. He took a deep breath, turned the knob, and leaned against the door. It didn’t budge. He burst into faster tears then, feeling stupid and embarrassed. What had he thought he’d accomplish running away like that? Now he’d have to sit here on their front stoop, looking stupid and embarrassed. He’d have to wait while they unlocked the door, answer their questions, see their faces – see  _ Dan’s  _ face.

Then Phil remembered about the back patio. He ran around the side of the house and towards the patio table where they had eaten so many of their meals. They had left in a hurry, so there was a chance that the back sliding doors had been left unlocked. He stumbled towards them, pressed his body against the glass, and  _ success _ . They slid open, welcoming Phil into the cool air of the house. He quickly slid the door back into place and bound towards the stairs, but as he did so he heard the lock of the front door click open.

“Shit,” he muttered and tried to focus on not tripping over his own feet as he took the stairs two at a time. Someone had come after him, and he knew that it was probably Dan. And this should have made him happy, really. Dan surely knew something was wrong now, and was here to…what? Phil wasn’t exactly sure what reaction he wanted from Dan at this point. For weeks he’d craved a quiet moment with him where he could let it all out, maybe cry in Dan’s lap, and then be squeezed as he fell asleep. But now, after all the confusingly standoffish behavior from Dan, Phil felt indignant.

And embarrassed. He really just felt embarrassed that he was so emotional, so freaked out, and was now curled up and crying on their shared bed.

It didn’t take long after he collapsed there for Dan to find him. Phil heard his footsteps first, then the creak of his weight shifting as he leaned slightly into the room and said, “Phil? Are you okay?”

Phil didn’t answer, but did sit up so that he could stare at Dan as he walked over to the bed and sat down. Phil was trying to think of what to say when Dan blurted, “I think I miscalculated.”

That caught Phil off guard. His blinked into the tear-stained air around him, his head already pounding slightly. “What?”

“I think I miscalculated,” Dan repeated. “This whole time, I think I’ve been paying attention to the wrong things. I’m so sorry.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Dan quickly walked forward and sat down in front of Phil on the bed. He looked rather precarious perched there – as if he was prepared to get up and walk around at any point – his legs tucked up next to the side of the bed frame and his right fist supporting all his weight.

“I haven’t been paying enough attention to you. I didn’t understand how much something was bothering you. And I didn’t understand because I wasn’t thinking. Or I was too busy thinking about myself. I was a self-centered prat.” Dan was still looking straight at Phil, and Phil could tell he was forcing himself to remain that way as his face turned slightly ashen with embarrassment.

“You have a right to be self-centered right now,” Phil muttered despite himself. “Your grandma just died.”

“Sure. But I realize you’ve been trying to talk to me the whole time we’ve been here, and I haven’t listened. Like I said, I miscalculated.”

Phil still didn’t understand, and all of a sudden he felt anger swell up inside him. How was it that he had spent so long craving some sort of confession from Dan and now that it was happening he felt completely lost?

“Can you stop saying ‘miscalculated’?” he asked. “It makes me feel like I’m a math equation.”

Dan gave him a tiny smile and took a deep breath. 

“Okay. This is going to sound so stupid, Phil. So, so stupid. But the truth is I didn’t expect you to have a strong reaction to nana’s death. I admit part of that is because you didn’t know her, but of course you are an empathetic person. But also, I’ve sort of cornered the market on this death stuff.” He smiled again at Phil, looking a little sheepish now, and Phil waited for relief to come at these words, at the admission that Dan had used the exact same strand of logic as him. “It didn’t occur to me that you might need to talk about nana’s death,” he continued, his face turning sadder now. “Or maybe it’s not death stuff? Well, whatever it is, I’m listening now.”

Phil waited, remaining silent, but his head didn’t stop pounding. Why hadn’t Dan’s admission made him feel any better? Why wasn’t he jumping on this invitation for communication? He wasn’t sure, or maybe he was, and as Dan looked at him expectedly he felt himself shrinking into his shirt.

Because here he was faced with it: he wasn’t just fearful of Dan not having feelings, but also fearful of him having his own. He feared what would happen if his feelings continued to grow, swelling in his chest and pushing on his ribcage, impinging on his breathing and forcing him into panic. He didn’t want that to be him when for so long that had been Dan, and they’d found a certain rhythm. But he had run out of reasons to just be mad at Dan for his own composure. So Phil spoke, making sure his voice came out as matter-a-fact as possible.

“I think I’m having an existential crisis.”

Dan stared at him blankly for a few seconds, and then laughed. His face became washed with relief, as if this was something much less heavy than he’d expected.

“I’m fucking serious,” Phil said, and Dan’s eyes widened as his mouth clamped shut.

“Sorry. Oh my god. Sorry,” he gasped, his voice halfway between laughter and gasps. “I thought you were joking, because I’d just said…. But you’re serious. Okay. I’m listening.”

“What you said was correct. And trust me, I’m aware of how goddamn ironic this is. But I’ve spent night after night staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what’s going on, and that is the best word for it, I think. I looked up the definition of it. An existential crisis is when someone questions if their life has meaning, purpose, or value. I’m not really questioning  _ if  _ my life has meaning as much as questioning what that meaning is, I guess.”

Dan was quiet for a long moment, and then asked, “Is that why you’ve been re-reading your linguistics textbooks? Have you been imagining what your life would be like if you’d pursued that more?”

“That’s part of it.”

“So what is  _ it _ ?”

“I don’t know!” he groaned. He was well aware of the fact that his voice was getting louder, and so was Dan’s, and while this wasn’t going terribly it also wasn’t going well. “I don’t know how to say the big picture part of it.”

“Then just start somewhere, Phil. I want to understand.” Dan repositioned himself so that he was leaning against the headboard, and dragged Phil’s body so that Phil’s head was down by Dan’s feet and Phil was looking up at him. 

For one moment Phil allowed himself to close his eyes and sink his head into the softness of the comforter. Then, while distracted by the feeling of the blanket on his tired eyes, he said the first words that came to him.

“I was fine. Then your nana died. And it happened so quickly, you know, so easily. I’ve never thought that I feared death. And even now I’m not sure I do. It was the loss of it that shocked me.”

“But Phil, you’ve had one of your grandparents die.”

“I know. I think what upset me most wasn’t really the loss of your grandma. It was thinking about who she left behind. About who I’d leave behind if I went the same way.”

“I don’t think a cold’s gonna get you like it got my nan.”

“Stop joking about this,” Phil snapped, and his voice contained more venom than he wanted it to. He saw Dan react to it, his face transform into surprise and then seal itself against the identification of any specific feeling. Phil closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on himself. 

“Things have been good with us,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“We’ve been closer than ever. In life and in work. I guess the crux of my crisis is wondering what it means that we are so connected when life is full of risk. Then I bounce between thinking we are too close and wanting us to be closer.”

“But that risk…that risk of one of us disappearing or whatever…that’s just life.”

Phil groaned. “I  _ know, _ but–” And then he thought of something that might help demonstrate what he meant. “Do you have that card you gave to your parents? The one you signed from both of us?”

Dan looked wary. “It’s downstairs on the mantelpiece.”

“Go get it,” said Phil, and he had a hunch that it was only the strong fervor in his voice that prevented Dan from questioning him first.

Dan returned a minute later with the card in his hand. Phil grabbed it and flattened it against the bed. “Look at our names,” he said, pointing to the bottom of the left flap. They’re so connected. I mean literally connected. Look at how they look with the ampersand.”

Dan laughed, which caught Phil off guard. “Phil, are you feeling too tied down by me?” he joked, and Phil realized he must be a bit scared.

“No,” he said, voice softer. “At least, nothing about our life scares me until I see it on paper or see your dad adjusting to a world without his mum.” Dan didn’t say anything, and Phil felt himself exploding again, like he’d done on the boat. “You do realize you’re stuck with me now, right? You’re stuck with me. Look at our names,” he demanded again. “Dan  _ and  _ Phil. Even  _ The Amazing Book is Not on Fire  _ is a combination of both of us, me then you, not even a conjunction necessary, just a smooth transition from one to the other. Completely connected.”

“But they are just words. Just a branding, just a name. I think you’re overthinking it, Phil.”

“Great. So as normal I’m overthinking it, except that’s supposed to be what  _ you  _ do, and you’re – what? Calm as ever?”

Dan took a deep breath and then said, “Nana’s death hasn’t spiked any new fears in me. I already feared death too much for that to happen. But it made me realize that there’s something I fear more than death.”

“What?”

“Change. And I know that death is just a kind of change, the ultimate change, blah blah blah,” Dan said. “But the smaller changes have really been eating at me recently.”

“Like what?”

“Sometimes I worry that if I change you might no longer love me. Or that one day you might become someone I don’t recognize.”

Phil felt his chest open up. He didn’t know if he wanted to sob or laugh. “Me too. Dan, I worry about that  _ all  _ of the time.”

Dan frowned now. “I know. So I’m not sure if I need to be worrying about it too.”

“That’s kind of how I feel about the whole existential crisis thing.”

Dan laughed. “But that’s the whole point, Phil. I don’t think I’m actually all that existential anymore. Case in point,” he said, gesturing around them, “the things I’ve been worrying about since nana’s death are much more solid. And you’ve been worrying about a freaking signature.”

“No, not just that. Our whole book, our whole branding. And it’s not that I regret our decision to become a duo, so don’t even suggest it,” he said quickly.

Dan gave him a little smile and sighed, “I actually don’t think regret is our problem.” Even in Phil’s frenzied state, he noticed how Dan’s phrasing had changed from  _ your  _ and  _ my  _ to  _ our _ . “I know I said that the things you were obsessing over were  _ just  _ a branding. But I must admit that I get wrapped up in it too. Like, I know that our brandings aren’t who we really are and are just caricatures. But I do sometimes get preoccupied with being existentialist and grumpy and sad enough.”

“Yeah. Me too, I guess, with being light and happy.”

Dan brought his hand up to Phil’s forehead and ran his fingers across his hairline, which Phil was overly aware had begun to recede, but the look of adoration on Dan’s face prevented him from flinching away. “You limit yourself, Phil,” said Dan, his voice almost at a whisper. “And, I must admit, I’ve limited you too. When I said I miscalculated, I meant that I think of you as overly empathetic, and so I warned you against becoming obsessed with my own feelings and then I thought that was that, you’d be fine.”

“But obsession with your feelings bleeds into me having my own feeling. That’s how empathy works. Empathy,” he recited, slumping back onto the bed, “the ability to understand and  _ share _ the feelings of another.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “There’s my little linguist.”

A laugh burst through Phil’s lips for the first time since he’d run back here, and Dan opened his arms for him. He obliged, falling forward into Dan’s chest and cuddling his head against his shoulder. Dan wrapped his arms around Phil’s back and pressed a kiss into his hair before speaking again.

“We always spoke about the risk of this book as if the real threat to our relationship is a lack of privacy. But I’m not sure that’s it. We can’t see each  _ other  _ as our brands, Phil. That’s far more detrimental. We have to remember that the other person is real.”

Phil nodded, pushing his forehead into Dan’s shoulder blade. “Agreed.”

“I mean, if you really think about it, what is a brand? It’s a set of rules, summaries of who we are as people. Brands are helpful for making an audience feel like they know us. But we can’t assume things about the other person based on our brands, because we actually know each other.”

(“Do you ever feel like no one really knows you?” Dan had asked Phil once over Skype. It was early morning, and they had stayed up late talking until 4 A.M., then fallen asleep and woken up a few hours later to discover their call was still connected. Talking to Dan this early in the morning, with the harsh light shining onto his legs and self-awareness crowding his brain had used to be hard for Phil. But now it was normal, because he talked to Dan  _ all  _ the time, at  _ every  _ hour of day. There was no time apart from Dan anymore, except for the fact that they were still physically miles apart. 

“Sometimes,” Phil responded. But the fact that Dan had become such a permanent fixture in his brain meant that he felt like Dan really knew him. Or that he really knew Dan. But he wasn’t sure if that was the  _ real  _ Dan or the one in his head, and he didn’t know how to communicate such a concept so early in the morning. 

“I used to lie awake at night worrying that no one would ever know me. I mean, my parents definitely don’t really know me. They just know who they want me to be. And my brother knows me as nothing more than his annoying older brother.”

“But you know you,” Phil said. “Don’t you? You know who you want to be?”

“Maybe,” Dan said, and then suddenly he looked blushy and shy, and Phil knew that he was about to say something he’d probably remember forever. “I feel more like I know who I want to be when I’m with you, because I feel like you really know me. I mean, I feel like the version of me you might think you know matches up with who I think I am. Does that make sense?”

Phil’s heart was pounding. “You feel like I really know you?” he asked, and as he said it he almost felt like he was asking  _ You mean you love me _ ?, like this conversation was all a larger signifier of something else.

“Yeah, I do.”  _ I love you _ . 

“Good, because I feel like I really know you, and that you know me. So I feel all those eloquent words you said right back at you.”

Dan giggled. “I don’t think I’m that eloquent. I’m just waffly. Shouldn’t you be capable of using your own eloquent words?  _ You’re  _ the one who studied linguistics, after all.”

“I liked your words better,” Phil said.  _ I love you too _ .)

Phil remembered how much of a landmark it used to be for them to be able to say that they  _ really  _ knew each other. But now he wasn’t so sure what that even meant. He felt like even as they’d remained each other’s closest companion the versions they’d known of each other had shifted. He found that he didn’t always know how to connect the dots in the story of their lives. And it both hurt and joyed Phil to think about who they were then compared to now.

“But there are always going to be multiple versions of us, even when we’re with each other,” he said. “We can’t assume we know everything about each other just because we’re standing in front of each other.”

Dan smiled. “Or just because we sign our names together on a card.”

“Exactly.”

“It’s been hard being here together for so long, hasn’t it,” Dan said, and it wasn’t a question.

Phil felt Dan wrap his arms even tighter around him, despite the surely uncomfortable position he was seated in, and he began to slowly rock Phil back and forth, like he was a baby in a rocking chair. Phil remembered when, right before they’d entered Dan’s house, Dan had said he’d always take care of him. Phil had forgotten that in his panic over words and brands and semantics. How silly he’d been, he thought now, forgetting the difference between their online world and the world right in front of him. It wasn’t an issue of fantasy for him – both worlds felt equally real – but one was where his mental health and sanity lived, and he couldn’t forgo taking care of that for the sake of who AmazingPhil was supposed to be.

“So what do you think about all of this?” Phil asked after a long moment of silence. “What should we do?”

Dan stopped rocking and pulled back to look at Phil. “I think that not every little bit of space between us is a threat. And every little connection isn’t a reason to be scared. And I think that when we get home you should maybe visit a therapist for your new fears.”

Phil sighed and then nodded, agreeing that would be best. “Look at you,” he said, “sounding so mature.”

“I can be sometimes,” Dan laughed. 

\- - -

Phil pretended to take a nap after that, curling into Dan’s side and slowing his breathing so that he sounded at peace. And he did feel rather peaceful, but only in that temporary way when after crying and panicking over something his mind and body shut down. He knew that it wouldn’t be until the next day that he’d deal with the real assessment of whether he really felt better.

For now, he was trying to sit with his thoughts and fears, letting them swirl around his mind in whichever way they pleased so they could hopefully settle on a resting place. He focused on the feel of Dan’s stomach pressing into his side. He thought about the tangible certainty of Dan’s body lying beside his, the traitorous promise of it, because while they had control over many aspects of their relationship, luck and chance had powers of their own.

It was all still a gamble, really: branding themselves as a duo, putting it all out there, allowing people to call their relationship whatever they want to call it. Lying on their shared bed at Dan’s parents house after a pseudo-fight with Dan’s family, Phil had never felt more aware of that. He let Dan stroke his hair as he continued to fake sleep – although he suspected it was not truly fooling Dan – and forced himself to switch from thinking negatively to positively.

Instead of what it would feel like to lose Dan, Phil thought about what it had been like to gain him. He’d never thought he’d have someone in his life he was this close to. He couldn’t believe he’d been lucky enough to gain a life-long companion so early on. And they were closer than ever,  _ too  _ close maybe. But they’d crossed the point at which they might’ve been able to turn back long ago. They’d met because they desired the same career, then pursued said career together. They’d moved it together, done a radio show together, traveled together, made videos together, designed merch together, made their names fit together. Despite the many fears they felt deep down about dependency and impermanence, they’d done everything in their power to make sure ‘together’ was synonymous with ‘Dan and Phil’, done so many things together that the word was beginning to lose meaning.

The truth was they had only ever started doing this because they were addicted to each other, like the ampersand craves the next word.

\- - -

With one day remaining until the funeral, the Howell’s found that there wasn’t much left to do. They passed the time by cooking lots of food (“Full stomachs lead to full hearts,” Megan recited over and over again.) and playing large amounts of video games (“I think dad’s gone mental,” Alex whispered to Dan one morning when they came down for breakfast. “I think nana’s death has caused him to finally have his mid-life crisis, because he just said he was bored and wondering if I could  _ teach him to play Mario Kart _ !”). Phil found himself being constantly invited to join in on their activities, whether it was Megan peeling cucumbers or John sweeping the back patio. They never spoke about Phil’s outburst on the lake, which Phil found slightly disconcerting, but Dan insisted was normal.

(“We don’t talk about our issues or fights,” Dan had said after Phil asked him if this sort of radio silence was normal. “That’s why it was so surprising to my mum when I said I thought dad had been unfairly cooped up. I think it was even a little of a relief to her when she learned it was your suggestion, because then at least it wasn’t a sign of our communication patterns suddenly changing.” Dan rolled his eyes, and Phil realized he was getting a glimpse of an issue with his family that Dan had previously never been able to put into words.

“So I shouldn’t go apologize?”

Dan looked shocked. “No, Phil, of course not!” he said so adamantly that Phil felt himself blush. “You did nothing wrong. Okay, so you got a little rambly and began to cry. Haven’t we all?”

Something about Dan’s tone made Phil wonder if he’d even behaved similarly when out on the lake with his dad. He wondered it they’d had a similar type of confrontation when Dan dropped out of uni, or said he wanted to become a YouTuber.

“They still like you,” Dan said, able to hear Phil’s silent worry. “Phil Lester, you are so polite that I think you could punch someone in the nose and they would still like you. So stop worrying.” His firm tone signaled to Phil that was the end of this conversation, but he couldn’t help smiling widely and kissing Dan on the cheek.)

Still feeling uncomfortable when in the presence of Dan’s family without Dan, Phil stuck to his side. Dan, unlike his family, spent those two days at the piano, pressing the keys until the skin on the tip of his fingers became so raw that Phil insisted he soak them in lotion.

Dan had admitted to Phil that he’d been spending so much time back at the piano recently because he wanted to play it at the funeral. (“But I’m failing,” he whispered to Phil the night of the boat fiasco. They were curled up in bed now after a warm shower and a solo dinner that Dan’s mum had allowed them to have. They’d eaten warm soup and had sex, feeling optimism and hope return to their extremities as they linked their hands and curled their toes.

“I doubt you’re failing. But I must admit I also haven’t heard you play the song all the way through. You want to play Ingenue, right?” Dan nodded. “But you keep playing the same section over and over again.”

“I want it to be perfect,” Dan stressed, but Phil smiled at him.

“You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“How?”

“You think you need to be better than you are.” When Dan continued to look confused, Phil continued, “You are  _ limiting  _ yourself to your  _ brand,  _ Dan,” he crooned, enjoying the repeat of their earlier conversation. “You get a lot of pressure from viewers to play piano like you’re some prodigy, and so you’re afraid to get back on the horse.”

“Phil Lester, are you saying I am  _ bad  _ at piano?”

Phil laughed at Dan’s exaggerated expression. “Yeah, I am. Because you’re not as good as you’re  _ branded  _ to be, and therefore you feel inadequate. So throw out that expectation, and start over. You’ll be great. Plus, your nana would’ve loved it, and that’s all that matters really.”)

And so Dan practiced through the afternoon and far into the night on both days, and Phil sat next to him, sometimes watching, sometimes whispering encouragements, and sometimes working on the book. He’d gone back to working on the simpler parts, those that focused on their individual lives specifically. He thought of creating a personal alphabet for each of them in which they wrote what each letter stood for when describing them. He sat there for hours, trying to figure out what else they could add. He thought that when they got back home Dan would owe him a whole week of solo book work.

“I’ve got an idea for a new section,” he said suddenly, not even waiting until Dan was done with a section to speak. Dan finished out the part he’d been looping, though, not showing any sign that he’d even heard Phil until he took his hands off the keys and turned to face him.

“Okay, what?”

“Now you might think this sounds crazy. But I think we should write an account of what happened when we went to Vegas.”

Dan’s eyebrows shot up. “For my 21 st birthday? How much of that trip are you planning to recount?”

Phil tried to stifle his laugh and protested, “Let me  _ finish _ . I thought of this because it relates to what we were talking about earlier. Everyone always wants to know the truth about us, right? Wants to really know us. That’s why we even have these brandings in the first place, as shields to protect the real self underneath it.  _ Or _ ,” he interjected quickly, seeing Dan’s protest form in his head, “as you like to say, the branding is simply one version of us, since there is no one real self within us. Whatever, philosophy is boring.” Phil waved his hand dismissively as he said this, mostly just to annoy Dan, and it worked. Dan began loudly protesting the importance of philosophy, his voice so high that it was almost a squawk, and Phil merely smiled at him as his anger ran its course.

“You’re just pulling my leg,” Dan mumbled eventually, deflating back into the piano bench.

Phil was laughing hard now, his body doubled over. “Partially, yes,” he wheezed. “But the idea actually has to do with that concept.”

“The concept that there is no real?”

“Exactly. So people always want to know what really happened in Vegas. They feel entitled to that information because at one point in time they were promised a video. So let’s say we’re going to tell them the real story. And it starts out pretty plausibly real. Like, we go to Vegas and we walk through the casinos and it’s all crazy and flashing lights and general insanity. We start filming some stuff. We try the slot machines, play blackjack, go swimming. But then, zombies attack.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “ _ Zombies  _ attack?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I think it would need to be something a bit more realistic. Like we win the lottery and then get hunted down by the Mafia.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll write your version into the draft.”

Dan nodded and, satisfied now, returned immediately to playing the piano. He was almost to the end of Ingenue now, and played the final motif over and over again, his fingers strongly pressing in the keys, achingly searching for perfection. Phil had hoped he’d leave that behind, but was happy enough that Dan had promised to at least finish the song once before getting to crazy about the details. Plus, he knew that in reality there was no chance Dan would leave this core trait of his behind just because he asked.

Phil was staring at his knees and pondering this when Dan spoke, making him jump.

“Do you feel more comfortable with my family now?” Dan hadn’t even stopped playing, and as he spoke his hands stumbled and missed a note.

Phil hadn’t expected this question. “Does that matter to you?”

Dan stopped playing then, but he still stared at the keys as he said, “Yes. Because they’re my family and you’re my family. And while I don’t spend a lot of time with them, I want to know I can bring you around.”

“You can always bring me around. Whether or not I feel comfortable.”

Dan’s face twisted. “So you don’t?”

“I….,” Phil hesitated. “I am not good at understanding that not every person is going to be like me.”

Dan nodded seriously. “White man’s privilege.”

Phil laughed. “Okay. Well, I see family as something slightly different than you. I see aging and death as something slightly different than you. I see threats where you don’t, and vice versa. So I think I can’t immediately change how I feel here, even if I wanted to. And I do want to. But it’s going to take some time.”

Dan smiled at him. “We’ve got time.”

_ A promise _ , Phil thought.  _ A treacherous promise that ignored chance and luck, or a lack thereof _ . But he made himself smile back. Maybe it was a reckless promise, but Phil could benefit from being a tad more reckless.

\- - -

Nana’s funeral took place at noon in the neighborhood church. Phil rose at 9AM to help Dan’s mum make flower arrangements and place the premade hors d'oeuvres onto trays. He heard from the kitchen Alex’s squeal of shock when Dan jumped on him to wake him up at 11AM. Dan had announced he was going to do this the previous night at dinner. (“Don’t you dare,” Alex had balked, almost dropping his fork on his plate.

“Like you’re going to naturally wake up before noon.”

“Yeah, but I have something called an alarm. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before. It’s in my phone. I set it to a certain time and then it makes a loud noise at that time to wake me up–”

“Sure, try to hurt me with your words,” Dan sighed. “This isn’t helping to convince me to go easy on you when I jump you in the morning.

“Dan, I swear, don’t fucking jump me.”

“Boys….”

“C’mon, Alex. When’s the next time I’m gonna see you? This is a brotherly tradition.”

“No this is your  _ bullying  _ tradition.”

“ _ Boys _ ,” Megan pleaded.

“If you jump me tomorrow morning I will punch you in the dick.”)

And, like clockwork, Phil heard Dan’s returning scream as Alex, he assumed, punched him the dick. Megan, who had looked sad and stressed all morning, cracked a smile. “I must admit I will miss them both being here,” she whispered. Phil wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard it, but he smiled back.

Come 11:45, they stuffed themselves into John’s car, each of them holding some tray or vase. Surprisingly, John was in the best spirits out of all of them that morning. He wasn’t chipper, but his face was calm and free of lines as he got into the driver’s seat. He turned the key in the ignition and, before pulling out of the driveway, spent a minute messing with the radio station until he settled on one that played oldies.

Phil had been thinking a lot about John over the past day. He’d viewed him through Dan as the typical manly father, stringent when sharing his feelings and critical of emotions. And he was unsure if this was how Dan saw him or how he really was – or maybe a little bit of both.

They arrive at noon to find that around twenty people had already arrived at the church. “I’m surprised how many people are here,” Dan whispered to Phil as they sat down in a pew. “It’s another reminder to me how much I didn’t know about nana. I had no idea so many younger people in town still knew her.”

Phil looked around, understanding what Dan meant. Most of the people here looked under sixty, and only one couple looked as though they might have been the same age as Dan’s grandma was. Phil thought that likely many of these people came because they were friends with John. His mum had always told him that funerals were for the living, and he understood that with a new reverence now.

He told Dan this, and Dan frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. But do you think this funeral is really for my dad, either?”

Phil thought about this for a moment. 

“Yes,” he said. “I think it’s giving him closure. And it must be nice to know you have people in your life who care about you enough to plan a whole funeral for your mother, even if it ends up not exactly the way you’d wanted.”

They sat quietly, not speaking to each other again as the pews filled and the funeral began. First the priest spoke for a while, and then several people came up to speak about nana – people she’d mentored, people who’d cared for her in her final months, people who’d loved her garden. As each new person approached the stage, Phil wondered if John was going to speak. If asked a month ago, he’d say there was no way Dan’s dad would look teary-eyed in front of a crowd. But now he wasn’t so sure.

Dan nudged Phil in the side as his dad rose and walked towards the stage, whispering, “Oh no, I can’t believe he’s speaking.”

“Are you worried about seeing him cry?” Phil asked. “Or not cry?”

“No, I’m worried  _ I  _ will cry.”

After all the speeches, the priest returned to the stage and Dan stood, squeezing Phil’s hand as he left the pew. Phil squeezed back and then watched as Dan walked towards the grand piano at the left side of the stage, feeling himself grow teary already.

Dan sat down at the piano bench, rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt and, when the priest nodded at him, began to play. It was beautiful, and Phil finally let himself cry.

Even though Dan’s grandma was already gone, and had been gone for weeks, he felt the sadness of this day press upon him and everyone else in the church. A funeral was one of the safer promises, he thought, because it was for a life already gone. But he knew, also, that he couldn’t go through life only feeling life and love so strongly that it caused a breakdown in the face of a death. He had to live life too.

Dan continued to play, and he fumbled a few notes, but always jumped right to the next one. Probably only Phil was able to notice the way his shoulders twitched in disappointment.

\- - -

March left soberly and ushered into an equally gloomy April. Dan rose early on the morning after the funeral to pack their stuff. He hadn’t spoken much since the funeral. (“You did so well.” Phil had said to him as they sat in the car on the way to the cemetery. He squeezed his hand, and Dan gave him a tiny smile.

“I guess I did,” he said, which Phil took as a good sign.)

Dan had passed out early that night as Phil typed away vigorously on his laptop, ideas forming in his brain faster than he could type them out. So he was very appreciative when Dan touched his shoulder that morning and whispered, “You keep sleeping, I’ll pack all your stuff.”

Phil didn’t even manage to say thank you before he drifted off again, but did give a little kiss into the air.

He awoke at 9 A.M., when Dan shook him again and said they left in about an hour. 

“Home,” he whispered as Phil managed to blink into the light, and Phil whispered back, “Home.”

With Dan carrying both of their backpacks and the suitcase, they both walked down the stairs to where Dan’s family was waiting for them. They were all sitting in the family room, most of them looking quite awake. The exception was Alex, who slumped into the back of the couch and looked like he wanted to break something.

“I woke him up before I woke you,” Dan whispered to Phil with a grin. “Pounced on him. He was not happy with me. But I’ve got to fulfill my big brother duties while I can.”

“Of course you do.” Phil grinned, and then his attention redirected to the adults eagerly looking at him. It was time to say goodbye.

He almost felt guilty about the relief that coursed through him when he remembered that their apartment was waiting for them at the other end of this day. But Dan seemed equally as tired as he kissed his mum on the cheek.

“I’m guess we won’t see you for Easter then?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet what our plans are, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

Megan smiled gently at this, and then moved towards Phil. “It was lovely to see you, Phil.”

Phil kissed her cheek as she kissed his, and then panicked for a second about whether he was supposed to kiss her other cheek. But thankfully she pulled back, and he quickly said, “Same to you. Thanks so much for hosting me.”

Megan responded, but Phil zoned out when he realized that John was coming up towards him as well. His tired brain began to churn, because was it proper now for him to hug John as well? Shockingly, John did open his arms to Phil, and he entered the hug. 

“Thanks for taking care of Dan,” he said.

“Oh,” Phil said, hating how his voice temporarily jumped to a higher octave. “I don’t know about that. It’s a joint effort.”

But John laughed at this, pulling back to say, “Alright, enough of that. Let’s let these boys get on their way.

Phil saw that Dan was beaming at him as they waved goodbye to Alex, grabbed their bags, and exited the house.

“Forget my mum,” Dan whispered. “My  _ dad  _ likes you. It’s every girl’s dream!”

Phil laughed, and he was sure the sound traveled under the front door and into the Howell’s house.

They ran on autopilot as they traveled to the train station, speaking to each other only to discuss if they needed to buy more snacks. They decided against it, as they were both still too sleepy to make sane purchasing decisions, and bought two coffees.

“You know,” Phil murmured as they waited at their platform. “We could’ve stayed for Easter. It’s only a few days away.”

“We need some time to ourselves. To recoup.”

“True. But you should be able to go if you want to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to see them,” Dan said. Phil thought he was going to elaborate and waited for it, but it never happened, so he let it go.

As they sat on the train, Phil showed Dan his full draft of the What Happened in Vegas section. He watched nervously as Dan read slowly, grinning and then laughing. 

“Holy shit, Phil. You’re really trolling the readers!”

Phil frowned. “I’m not trying to troll them. I’m trying to make a point.”

“And some of them might get it,” Dan said. “But some of them will surely go into this thinking they’re finally gonna get the juicy truth.”

“Well, we can’t stop those people from thinking whatever they want to think,” he said. He leaned back into his seat and tried to suppress a yawn. He was exhausted, but he felt it was worth it for this passage. Beneath his exhaustion a business plan was forming for the book release, the tour, and, well,  _ after _ . Whatever after was for them. Thinking about this question, he felt himself grow doubtful. “I mean, if you don’t like it we can scrap it,” he said

“No, I like it,” Dan said, smiling at Phil now, “I think it’s genius. A very Phil way to say ‘fuck off.’”

Phil rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I’m trying–”

“I know, I know. That’s not what you’re trying to say.” Dan kept grinning at him, and then glanced back down at the laptop screen.

Phil leaned forward again, revitalized. “I think we should end the book with this. Because it’s saying, ‘You will never be able to learn the ultimate truth of Dan and Phil because the truth does not exist.’”

Dan gaped at him. “What? We can’t end with this.”

“But I thought you liked that sentiment? Don’t you want people to know that this is only one version of us? This is a very sly way to do it.”

“I agree, but I don’t think we can  _ end  _ with it.”

“Dan,” Phil whined, stretching Dan’s name out to fit multiple syllables. “I have spent so much time during this trip wracking my brain for ideas and doing everything in my power to make this draft complete. I don’t know what else I can do. There’s no more wracking capability left in my brain! It’s a dry towel, Dan!”

Dan’s mouth was frozen in both a frown and a laugh. “Phil, do you mean  _ wringing  _ your brain?” he asked, and Phil responded with a growl.

“How about this,” Dan said, and his voice was now very soft, “I know that I’ve made you take up a lot of the slack during this trip. So I promise to write a properly waffly and emotional end. It will be full of non-ironic completely sincere thank yous to our audience and appreciation for my friendship with you.”

“Oh,” Phil said back in an equally soft tone. It was their privacy voice, the way they created a forcefield around themselves when in a public place. “I don’t want to make you do that.”

“You’re not. I want to.” Dan handed Phil back his laptop and took out his own.

\- - -

When they finally arrived back at their flat, they immediately collapsed into bed for a nap. Phil wasn’t sure whether Dan actually needed one or just wanted to cuddle Phil.

“I know I promised to write the end to this draft,” Dan muttered as he pulled Phil towards him so that his chest cradled Phil’s back. “And I will. But I also want to cuddle you. Is that okay?”

“It’s okay if you shut up and let me sleep,” Phil grumbled, and Dan laughed. It was a happy, carefree kind of laugh that Phil hadn’t heard in weeks. He didn’t know what it was about being at his parents’ house that made Dan laugh less. He didn’t know how to reconcile the facts that Dan didn’t dislike his parents but also found being there stressful. He tried to push that thought out of his mind, because if left to his own devices he would ponder on it for hours, allowing it to prevent him from getting the sleep he desperately needed.

“Hey dork,” he heard Dan say, “you forgot to take off your glasses.”

Phil touched the fingers of his left hand to his nose. So he had. But before he could muster up the energy to remove them himself, he felt Dan sit up and remove the glasses with his own hand, gently setting them on the bedside table. Then he leaned down and kissed Phil on the check before returning to his position as big spoon.

\- - -

Sometimes, Phil woke up feeling in complete awe that Dan was a part of his life. On these kinds of mornings, he felt as if he had been completely re-started, as if every cloud that had settled over his head was nowhere to be seen.

This was how he felt the next morning, when he woke up in his bed, in his room, in their familiar apartment. At that moment, it didn’t matter that it was only 10:30AM and he’d been woken up because of the workers drilling outside his window. It didn’t matter that his bed frame was mostly broken on the side where he lay and so his butt was sinking down into the floor much more than his head. It didn’t even matter that somewhere deep inside him there was a growing mass of fears that had tripled in size over the last few weeks.

Him and Dan had slept in their own rooms last night since Dan had been up late writing, and so Phil emerged to the kitchen by himself and started a pot of coffee. While it slowly brewed, the drops of dark liquid trickling into the pot, he got dressed in black jeans and one of his favorite t-shirts. After slipping it on over his head, he spent a few minutes rotating his torso and shoulders, enjoying how soft the fabric felt as it languidly shifted around his skin.

He set himself up in the lounge with a fresh cup of coffee and his laptop. He closed all the word documents and web browser tabs that he had opened over the last few weeks for book writing. He spent the next hour goofing off and watching YouTube videos.

When Dan emerged from his room two hours later, it was like a show: Dan sleepily walking down the hallway, the floor creaky enough that Phil could hear his footsteps. Dan walking right past the lounge, but then stopping and scratching his head, probably realizing that he’d seen Phil out of the corner of his eye. Dan turning back around and entering the lounge, giving Phil a golden smile, both with his lips and with his sleep-lined eyes. Dan stretching, his arms extending towards the ceiling and his hip bones pushing forward as he arched his back.

“Perv,” Dan giggled when he caught Phil staring at the line of skin between his waistband and t-shirt hem.

Phil felt himself blush. “Sorry. How did you sleep?”

“Not enough, but good.”

“How’s the writing going?”

Dan gave him a coy look. “You’ll see. Scoot your butt.” Phil scooted over, allowing Dan to squeeze himself in the space between Phil and the armrest. “It’s not done yet,” Dan clarified as he leaned back. “But soon.”

Phil nodded, finding that he didn’t feel at all worried about whether Dan would actually finish it. He pushed his laptop halfway onto Dan’s knees as a silent invitation to watch something. But Dan shook his head. “Not right now,” he said in a way that broke the worriless mood that had been hovering around Phil’s body. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”

Phil felt his body enacting its normal reaction, but he pushed against it. He made his breath move through his lungs painfully slowly, focused on relaxing his muscles, pushed against his heart’s desire to beat faster. He forced his mind to stay connected to this moment, to the image of Dan’s words and his calm face, and nothing that might come after it. He wanted today to be different, because today they were finally home, and he felt more emotionally exhausted than he could ever remember, and Dan looked like a golden present he couldn’t believe he had, and he didn’t want to always fall into the same self-fulfilling prophecy of panic.

“But it’s so early,” Phil said, keeping his voice light.

Dan rolled his eyes. “It’s almost 1PM, and I know you got up before me.” He brought his hand up to the back of Phil’s head and cupped it there, slightly massaging through his hair. “Hey, this isn’t a big deal, I promise.”

“Okay. Then what’s it about?”

Dan took a deep breath, and suddenly Phil realized that  _ he  _ was nervous. His eyes flitted away from Phil and then back towards him before he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about your feelings about death. About how anxious it makes you. I know it really came out in full force these past few weeks, but now I’ve realized I should’ve seen it earlier. I’m feeling kind of stupid.”

Phil sat up straighter, rotating his torso as best he could to face Dan. This felt like a repeat of a conversation they’d had earlier in the week, only now they were both calmer and able to speak more freely.

“What?”

“I always call you empathetic, and you are. But I can’t believe I ridiculed you so much for worrying so much about other people, about  _ me _ , when you were dealing with all these fears about loss and change. And I also let my fears get in the way. I lashed out at you. I’m sorry.”

Phil watched as Dan nervously ran his big toe up and down the inside of his left leg. He wasn’t completely sure how he felt about his own feelings anymore. “Thank you,” he said. “I knew you were in a weird mood because of your grandma’s death and being at your parent’s house, and I’m used to dealing with your slumps, but I didn’t know how to do that when I was in my own slump. I must admit, I was hurt that you yelled.”

“I know,” Dan said. “And I never even think of you having your own moods, which is just,” Dan leaned back into the couch and made a guttural noise that was halfway between a groan and  _ ugh _ , “so self-centered of me.”

It was a repeat of a conversation they’d already had, indeed, and at this point they were just retracing lines that they’d already drawn in each other’s minds. But he found it was helping him to find clarity, helping him to understand where his feet needed to go to make sure he didn’t trip and fall.

“I think we also both made a big deal out of something that probably wasn’t one,” Phil said. Then he felt a guttural laugh erupt from his throat, “We were just spending time at your parents’ house, for fucks sake.”

But Dan shook his head. “I knew that going to my parents’ house together was going to be strange, which is why I didn’t invite you. And then when you volunteered to go I promised to take care of you. And I didn’t. I assumed that because you had been braver than me you were going to be totally fine on your own.” Dan sighed and leaned forward, his elbows pressed into his knees, and ran his hands through his still-straight hair. “Being back home with my parents puts me on edge.”

Phil just shook his head. “I don’t understand. Like, you’ve apologized, and I appreciate that. So I really wish I could say I understand why you acted the way you did. But I don’t.”

Dan gave him a tiny smile, one made from just the lines of his lips. “And I don’t think you ever will. But that’s okay.”

“I don’t know how to be okay with not understanding.”

They settled into a silence, with Dan reaching over and pulling Phil’s hand into his lap. As Dan’s fingers intertwined with his own, Phil wondered whether Dan considered this silence to be an eerie or a comfortable one.

“Well maybe that’s lesson number one from all of this,” Dan said quietly as his thumb moved from one of Phil’s knuckles down to his wrist. “Don’t think into everything so much. Some things are just what they are on the surface.”

Phil snorted. “Like what?”

“Like, oh, I don’t know, an ampersand between two peoples’ names.” Dan’s eyes were twinkling, but Phil’s stomach seized up.

“No, I don’t want to talk about that. I’m so embarrassed,” he groaned.

“No,” Dan cooed, “It’s  _ cute _ . You were worried about us being too intertwined and how much it would hurt if you lost me.”

Phil sighed, “Yeah.”

“And all of that manifested itself through my use of punctuation! My little linguist.” 

Phil groaned again, covering his face with his hands, and he felt Dan wrap his arms all the way around his shoulders.

“It would hurt for me too, so much. We’re in deep, and I know that. But all we’ve got to do is keep doing what we’ve been doing. You know you’re stuck with me forever.”

_ A promise _ . “I know,” Phil said, while also knowing that it wasn’t exactly true, that  _ anything  _ could  _ always  _ happen, that the universe was always in flux.

(One night while at Dan’s parents’ house, when Dan and Phil still weren’t speaking, Phil had laid silently in bed next to Dan and pondered what it meant for Dan to be his family.

Growing up, he’d never fantasized about having a family of his own. Maybe part of that was because his family had always pushed a portrait of  _ family  _ as a wife, husband, and two children, and something about that had made even his pre-pubescent heart feel that something was  _ missing _ . But it was also because he was so happy in his family. Whatever misgivings he might’ve had about what a future family would look like for him, he buried them in his happiness at how much wife, husband, and two children worked for him when he was one of the two children.

And so when he’d met Dan his mind hadn’t gone straight to  _ family _ , but to  _ friendship _ and  _ companionship _ and, then,  _ love _ . He had added Dan as an addendum to his own family because of this love, but never considered the dynamics of Dan coming from a family of his own, one that was different and meant something different to him.

He’d never thought about how  _ family _ could also be a sort of determiner. Because determiners didn’t just have to the grammatical concept of a modifying word: a, the, each, every, this. They could also be people or things that permanently modify or decide something.  _ Something  _ was actually also a determiner, and equally frustratingly vague, and so Phil decided to replace it in his mind with  _ the future _ . He hadn’t thought about how Dan was going to connect to his past, his present,  _ and  _ his future, and how he might end up rewriting all three of them.

Dan snorted in his sleep, bringing Phil back to the moment: them lying in their bed at Dan’s parents’ house. They weren’t touching because they hadn’t been speaking when they got in bed, and they normally spent a few minutes discussing what cuddling position they wanted to start the night off in. Now, Dan flopped over from his back to his right side, making it so that he was now facing Phil. Phil didn’t like that he hadn’t touched him, hugged him, in so long, and wanted to reach out, but he felt himself beginning to fret. What would Dan think if he woke up to find their hands intertwined? Or their legs? Would he be horribly angry? Was remaining untouching all night one of the rules of fighting? Then a quiet, more sensible voice within Phil whispered that, even though they hadn’t discussed it before falling asleep, Dan would probably not be furious to find them touching when he woke.

Phil reached out and placed his finger tips on the open palm of Dan’s left hand. Dan didn’t stir, and Phil closed his eyes.

Perhaps the truth was that he hadn’t made  _ Dan  _ synonymous with  _ family _ , but  _ life _ . That’s what  _ this  _ was. That’s what the  _ something  _ was. Something much bigger and overarching. The sun rising. A busy day. A strong pot of coffee. A caramel macchiato from Starbucks. Good movies. Unhealthy dinners. A warm blanket on a winter’s day.)

\- - -

It was two days later when Dan barged into the office, his laptop hoisted high over his head, and yelled, “I finished!”

Phil whipped around in his chair so quickly that he almost fell off the side. “The book?” he part asked, part squealed as he grabbed onto the desk behind him. “You finished the draft?”

“Yes!” Dan said as he collapsed onto the couch. He laptop was still grasped in his right hand, but was now dangling off of his knee.

“Hold your laptop with both hands, then,” Phil said, leaning forward to grab it. “It contains our life’s work.”

“Right,” Dan said, placing a hand on either side of the keyboard and handing it delicately to Phil. “Please read what I have written, dear editor, and then tell me what you think.”

Phil laughed, “I am  _ not  _ your editor. We both have the same editor. We’re at the same level.”

“No, Kate is both of our editor’s, but you are also  _ my  _ editor, because as of the last few weeks you have done substantially more work on the draft than me.”

Phil let Dan’s words wash over him as he took the laptop from him, making sure to keep his facial expression steady. He felt that at this point they didn’t need to keep rehashing what had happened while they were away, that they could instead move forward, but he also appreciated Dan’s efforts to not let it go.

“Dan,” he said softly, deciding what he was going to say only seconds after opening his mouth. “It’s okay. You don’t have to keep bringing it up. You don’t have to punish yourself or anything.”

Dan’s face twisted into an odd expression. “I know. I wasn’t actually trying to punish myself. It’s just, like, self-deprecating humor.”

Phil’s pulse jumped. He wanted to move forward from what happened, and yet: he was still struggling to grasp Dan’s humor, he was still taking his jokes seriously when Dan wanted to play with the meaning of language with his words. He wanted to move forward from what happened – and he would – but it was still a part of their life.

“Ah,” Phil said, trying to sound totally calm. However, this effect was ruined by the clumsy way he shot Dan two finger guns. “I’ve got it.”

Dan laughed uproariously as Phil quickly lowered his head to read Dan’s ending. It was written in the same dialogue format that they’d written most of their chapters in. Dan began by saying that they were now at the end of the book, and had set up a few blank “ _ P: _ ”s for Phil to fill in. Then, Dan closed out the book with a written monologue. Phil read it slowly, taking in every word, feeling his heart thud steadily in his chest. Then he read it again. Then he read it a third time, and filled in all of the blank places for his own dialogue.

Dan let out a deep breath. “You are driving me crazy here, Phil.”

“Sorry,” Phil said. He heard the dazed tone in his own voice, but his heart was still thudding a-rhythmically. “I love it.”

Dan scooted forward to the edge of the couch cushion. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s perfect. And surprisingly emotional. Or maybe not surprisingly. I don’t know. I can’t decide which of us is more emotional, actually.”

Dan laughed. “Sometimes you are. Sometimes I am. We switch off.” There was an unspoken  _ And that’s okay _ that lived at the end of that sentence. Phil grasped onto it, imagining it whispered in his ear and written out in the air, and then let it go.  

Phil handed the laptop back to Dan, and then let out a large, stubborn groan as he bent forward and pushed his head into his knees. “I am so tired.”

“This whole month has been a lot,” Dan conceded, “with the book and…everything.” Dan’s voice had trailed off as he closed his laptop and set it next to him on the couch, so by the time he got to the word  _ everything _ it was quiet and indistinct, almost non-existent.

Phil sighed. “Everything?” It was a dare to be specific. Dan straightened his back, taking it on.

“This whole month has been a lot, with the book and my grandma’s death and our spur of the moment trip to my parents’ house which is not a place where we feel especially comfortable and my insistence to keep my feelings bottled up and your meltdown over which one of us should be more emotional and the general state of our relationship.” Dan crossed his arms and leaned back into the couch, never taking his eyes off Phil. “Happy?”

“Very,” Phil sniffed. He could tell Dan was teasing him with the crinkle of his eyes and the curve of his mouth, so he settled even more into the role he’d created for himself. “I think it’s important that we start using better rhetoric.”

Dan beamed then, his smile big enough to house multiple marshmallows. “My little linguist,” he said, and he’d been saying that a lot recently, and Phil wondered if it was becoming its own determiner, another way to say  _ I love you _ . That was okay, he thought. There surely could never be too many ways to say  _ I love you _ , especially between him and Dan.

“Hey,” Dan said, nudging Phil’s knee with his fist. “We should take a vacation.”

Phil groaned. “ _ Dan _ .”

“What? You were just saying how tired you were, I was just saying how overwhelming everything has been. So let’s take a vacation!”

“We can’t take a vacation! We were just gone for almost a month! We had to push back a deadline, barely made the revised date, and now we have to prepare for our next deadline.”

“So, what? That’s just life, Phil. It will always be happening.”

Phil gave Dan a look to let him know he thought he was crazy, but already he could feel a tiny part of his resolve beginning to crack. Hadn’t he just been thinking that? That life would keep moving forward, and would be unpredictable, and would also always include the things that made him feel scared and uncomfortable.

“C’mon, we deserve a break,” Dan said. “A real one.” To Phil’s surprise, Dan got off the couch and settled onto his knees right in front of Phil. He put his hands on Phil’s knees and looked straight up at him. “We could go to Japan….” He said it as if he knew it was potentially a crazy idea, but one that he couldn’t let go. Phil, too, felt his face open up as the possibility of it exploded in his head. Him and Dan in  _ Japan _ , away from any place where they had a history, together,  _ alone _ .

“The idea just popped into my head, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. We’ve always said we want to go together one day. If we’re going to plan a spur of the moment vacation, then shouldn’t it be there?”

“You’re right,” Phil said, and Dan immediately grasped either side of his face.

“Really?” he said, breathless now even though they hadn’t moved at all. “You’ll go to Japan with me? Like, next week?”

Phil laughed, and he thought that it sounded like a new kind of word. “Of course.”

Dan smiled and kissed Phil enthusiastically, empathetically, steadily.

\- - -

_ D: I guess I just want to say, this thing that we’ve created – this world of Dan and Phil – is ephemeral. It was never something that tangibly existed. _

_And it was all an accident really._ ** _We could have never met!_** **_I could have never taken that final leap into making videos, Phil might have gone back to working at a bookstore in York and none of this might have ever existed._** _It did happen though. We met, we made these videos together, and for whatever reason the chemistry between us had the X-factor that resonated with people around the world. And what we all created together over the following years is pretty darn wonderful._

_ This book is us taking our favorite parts from that swirling universe on the internet and trapping it in something physical. Something we can hold and touch and keep in our houses, so that long into the future we can all look back and remember who these Dan and Phil guys were and what they did.  _ **_You never know what could happen in the future, so in a way you could say we made this for us, for posterity, but really it was for you._ **


End file.
